Out of Retirement: Senshi in the States
by Miss Ami-chan
Summary: Set after the end of PGSM, but ignoring "The Special Act". Ami is in America for school, when some strange events in the country force her into "service" again, thankfully she can gather the help of the senshi--and some new allies too!
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: 7/5/12_

_I'm editing and taking out spelling errors and then intending to continue and finish. _

_Author's Note: 5/1/2008  
This is the longest ongoing re-write. Given I started re-writing this story, which was originally started just after PGSM finished. I started re-writing it last year, and got to chapter 2. Whoop-de-doo, given at that point it was 16 chapters long. Anyway, here's hoping this re-write goes a good deal better. _

_Original Author's Note:  
This one actually gets a disclaimer, because I don't own PGSM, and this one is taking some extreme liberties with information which was given in 'The Special Act-four years later', in that it basically takes most of it and throws it out of the proverbial window. So, there we go. I do of course have much love for Takeuchi-san and all things Sailormoon, but sometimes you start thinking...what if? In this case, what if the senshi still had their powers during this time, but elected NOT to use them unless there was need...and, come on there has to have been some kind of media coverage/fall-out, and sometimes I think, what would happen if a senshi ran into a rabid fan of them, or at least rabid gaijin fan-girls, we have to be sorta scary..._

_Without further a-do on with the story. _

It's odd when it hits. Out of the blue. I'm not at the flat or near anything familiar. It's usually something minor: a craving for _edamame _or having to explain for what seems to be the fiftieth time that it's pronounced "Ah-mee" not "Ay-mee" but every once in a while it's bigger: an overwhelming sense of loss at not being able to just kick off my uniform and run over to CROWN and hang out singing karaoke and eat cream pudding.

There's no pressure of impending _youma _or anything like that...I just can't. It's just not feasible in the middle of what I'm doing to pick up and FLY back to Tokyo. No way. No how.

These feelings always happen at a time when calling isn't even feasible it's three tomorrow morning when it's ten here on the West Coast of the United States and while I'm sure whoever I actually got hold of would tell me that it's okay I doubt they'd really be happy to be woken up.

I've found a little fountain in the hospital ground that I sit by on a fairly regular basis. I like to just stare past my reflection at the coins glinting off the bottom and feel the spray splash into my hair. I have a crystal clear...flash, Rei-chan would call it, a memory but not from this life; I'm dropping so far it's as if I jumped from my flat window. I land in a deep body of water and it's as if I'm absorbed down to the very bottom. I don't, didn't, even gasp for breath as I hit the surface. There's someone down there and I'm swimming over to meet up with them.

They hit from time to time these memories, clearer than what I ate yesterday (meat sandwiches and a fruit cup, I think) and the only explanation I have is "Moon Kingdom". I wish they were more solid with details, even if it doesn't really matter; it's so long since we've had to fight anything. Even so I still feel guilty for being here. The people I know here will ask me why I get these melancholy times but it's hard to explain. Everyone here seems to be about "sharing feelings" "emoting" but I don't see them understanding or believing that I miss turning into another person and fighting demons for no pay at the risk of personal and universal annihilation.

If I really think about it there's a very empty space in my life if I think that I may never have to transform again. That's even stranger given the amount of times during fights when I would sometimes think the reverse. I know the career path I've chosen will allow me to continue to help people and there is relief to not have to make the cell between operating on someone and having to fight plastic looking peril, but I'm afraid of getting too comfortable.

"Home sick?" a familiar voice asks.

I look up to find Harris, a former med school guinea pig who is becoming a friend (although I'm sure Usagi and Minako might trying to prove something more) standing nearby. There is a moment where I almost give him a report on my excellent health before remembering what the phrase actually means.

I slide across the fountain wall to let him sit down, "I was remembering things I used to do with my friends," it's a safe enough answer.

"That you can't do here?"

"Something like that."

He glances off towards the parking lot. I hesitate to watch in case he's not looking at anything but just thinking too, "You want to do something?"

"Something?"

"I don't know...go back to my house? I can dial for pizza like nobody else, given I really wouldn't trust a sushi delivery...of course you'd have to deal with my kid sister being home...do you like Chinese food? I know you're not Chinese...say something?...please?"

"Something? Please?"

It takes a moment for him to realize I was trying to be funny.

So by the by I find myself walking up a slightly untidy and to him small and me huge garden path to the front door of his parent's house.

"I'm going to give you mostly the same warning I give everyone. My kid sister she's annoying as Hell. She's into all this Japanese cra-stuff, and well, because of that she may try to eat you."

I stand warned and even more apprehensive on Harris' right as he fumbles for the key to open the house. The door swings open without the haunted creak I was expecting. There's just a _shoomp_ as the base of the door scrapes the top of the thick purple carpet.

"Mercury! _Abunai!_"

The warning shout, in my native tongue, sends me jumping back from the door startled. Who knows me by that name here? I could swear that was Venus' voice, which makes it all the stranger. What's she doing in Harris' parents' living room?

Harris looking at me with concern from just inside the door is all I see, "It's alright. You _can_ come in."

I cautiously step over the threshold, automatically slipping my feet out of my shoes. This makes his smile widen, and he calls through to the other room, "Jen, turn that crap off! We have company!" the keys drop from his hand into a green crystal bowl which is sitting on top of a nearby bookcase.

As I follow him into the living room I see girls in gaudy short skirts with multi-colored bows flipping around on the television screen. They're avoiding a large computer generated monster and occasionally zapping at it with bright energy beams. One of them looks very familiar even if she's got a large blue bow on the back of her long blond hair.

"See, look," I hear Harris say, "Even the native is aghast and it's supposedly from her country."

The redhead sitting cross-legged on the couch turns her head around to glare at him. She seems like she's going to say something, but then she yips a kind of indignant phrase and bolts out of the room leaving a bowl of popcorn spinning on the table. Harris picks up the remote and pauses playback. It freezes with "Oh, darn that hurt," a censored translation of something the green haired warrior girl is shouting as she's been knocked into a wall by the monster. From the looks of things she's a knock-off of Jupiter. The others have red & pink, blond, purple and white hair. Two of them are running to help her up.

"I sound like a total prick, but the voices are painful. That green-haired one she throws coconut milk or something what's that supposed to do? I have no ide—please tell me I didn't just insult your favorite childhood show or something..."

I shake my head fervently, "Mmm, no, not that," I sit down on the couch, "Can I see the box, please?"

"This probably hasn't done anything to stop you feeling homesick," he murmurs furrying around on the top of the cluttered entertainment center for it.

"It must have come out since I've been gone," I say, "believe me I would remember this," I take the box from him and scan the cover, which is clearly an illegally copied product, mostly in the original Japanese except for a small area in English that was probably added using Adobe Photoshop, explaining about a "great threat in to the cosmos" and that the "only one who can defeat it is Sailor V and her friends with their Crystal Magic." No wonder I thought I heard Venus, Minako did mention at one time that she'd been cast as herself in a series of movies. I flip back to the front, "Crystal Sailor V versus the Plasma Witch from Xenon."

"You know it?" his sister emerges from the back room. She must have been lounging around in her night clothes as she's wearing jeans now and a black t-shirt over a green long sleeved shirt. The long sleeved shirt is plain but the t-shirt has an ironed-on design it looks to be the cover for a band but I don't know for sure.

"I didn't know this came out," I admit.

"I heard the series started out just with Sailor V," she says, "but I haven't been able to get hold of any of those...from what I read on message boards they added the other warriors in because of something that happened in Tokyo a few years ago."

I feel the opposite of something I feel quite often, heat draining from my face instead of rising to it.

"Ami?" Harris asks.

"I figured it was some weird marketing ploy," Jen goes on, oblivious, "People being sent to the hospital, weird creatures breaking through buildings and attacking people, there've been some people saying they've seen them dressed over here, full of it-"

"There were some articles in the papers," I nod, "some of the descriptions were different than this..."

"I was hoping Aino Minako would sing something in the movie," Jen goes on.

"She used to do the theme songs," I explain, "but she did retire from singing, _you have to do what you want of your life once you have it_,"

"You're a Minako fan?"

I could think Harris makes a pained noise. He interrupts to get the pizza order, but Jen won't be dissuaded for long, because if I have every CD I must have been to the _Sayanora_ concert and it's hard for me to back pedal on that even though if she's a big a fan as she appears to be it won't be long before she realizes I'm one of the ones who was up on stage with Aino Minako and Mars Reiko and the other girls.

No matter how much I try she thinks my stories are so much more exciting than anything she could be telling me. Harris can't help much in steering the conversation either. Why would she listen to her brother when she can listen to someone Aino Minako considers a friend? I'm just going to have to search for these message boards myself after I get away. Perhaps I'll be able to talk to one of the others later and they can help dissuade my fear about other senshi. I'm sure America has cosplayers too, that's probably all that it was, plus if I can talk to Makoto, Usagi or anyone it might not feel so cold here.


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

_Author's note: when I write dialogue in ( ) it should be taken as being spoken in Japanese._

I know that there's a time difference between California and Tokyo, but even with that knowledge it's seeming impossible to get in touch with anyone. Phones ring and ring, text messages go unanswered, and I know email isn't going to work very well, but I try anyway. I used to have to show Usagi how to check her email again every few days or so.

There's probably a simple explanation, even though our phones aren't ordinary cell phones they might not work across international lines, still I find myself watching scuff marks arrive on my shoes as I walk from the bus stop to work, rather than looking around. It's been so long since we've had to use them for _that sort of thing_. Still it's another day where I find myself looking for tangible proof that our time as senshi even existed and it wasn't just some kind of hallucination.

But then there are those message boards. They weren't that hard to find but they've given me another reason to be worried. Some of it may just be internet rumors and paranoia, and I'm trying to think of it that way and be practical about it, but there are some recent reports and a couple of news links that I need to analyze more thoroughly but they're speaking of a couple of attacks here in the States, and one mentions a person in a strange costume coming to the rescue. It could just be someone from a fast food restaurant who happened to be right there, my brain points out to me, you're home sick and you're being silly, you're grasping at straws. Minako's had reason to travel around perhaps it was her, perhaps it was her.

I could try and call her and ask. She could make graphics on her computer and do her own web page so she's going to know how to answer email, but I'm being silly. There's nothing going on.

Still at a slow time I find myself browsing through the hospital records looking to see if there's anything unusual, as there isn't anything at our hospital, at least for a few days.

* * *

"Meezoonoh," the head nurse, who always like to remind everyone she's from "Tayx-uss" calls me over to help with a patient. I'd been making lists of supplies that we need to order, and mentally composing and recomposing an email to Minako when she shouted.

A family has come in. Their daughter is presenting strange symptoms and they're babbling about family histories of diabetes and epilepsy. Something about the way the young girl is staring blankly ahead jolts me in the stomach. She has none of the classic signs of either condition. We have to move her to the actual ward, and schedule MRIs. I try not to panic. It's just because I was reading about those things last night, I tell myself. They're fresh in my mind. Still I make notes and suggest putting in requests to Tokyo for their records from that time. It doesn't hurt to be thorough.

It weighs heavily on my mind as I leave the hospital. I have plans to scour further through actual news archives for the past few weeks, and see if I can network with other hospitals and find out information. I'm not sure how much headway I'll make. If there really are youma here how could I have missed it? What am I going to be able to do by myself? Can I afford to get everyone else over here? Would they be able to come? I'm getting ahead of myself...and then the horrific thought hits...could I have brought them over here?

"Ami!"

I turn around.

Harris is running towards me, slightly out of breath and waving his hands. He stops a few paces away and I toy with the strap of my bag, "You were miles away, again!" he chides, "You have to take me with you."

"What?"

"Never mind. Never mind," he waves a hand, pushing off my apparent misunderstanding.

"I'm so-"

He reaches a finger towards my mouth and I flinch back, "Don't apologize to me," he says. He looks hurt that I moved away, "You're entitled to thinking time. I just—I wish you would have more talking time. I—it must be hard being away from all your family and on such a time sucking course of study."

I try to look innocent and quizzical, but wind up blushing instead.

"Don't try to say you don't have the English words to explain. You're smart enough to be doing medicine-"

"I do," I admit, "I just...it's very strange and it's very...I feel you wouldn't believe me and I'm too cowardly to demonstrate. I don't even know if I could demonstrate," I amend.

"Alright," he says, "When you're ready."

Why does he have to be so nice? I chew on my lip.

"Is there anything I can do to help with this? Short of taking shots in the ass?"

"Maybe, for now, you can just take me to the grocery store?" I can't face another evening attempting to eat greasy Chinese take-out while tapping away at search engines finding old reports from Tokyo and comparing symptoms of this, and symptoms of that, and scaring myself more and more about having brought _youma _to California.

I want help from home. It would be enough just to have a friendly kick in the head from Rei-chan, telling me to stop making more out of this than it is, and reminding me of my tendency to over-analyze myself into panic and paranoia. Something like you're being stupid it's more likely sun stroke, although the girl was found on the evening of an over cast day. Is there such a thing as cloud stroke? That's more likely from Mako-chan.

"Now you have to tell me what's going through your head," Harris tells me as we get out of the car, there was small talk on the trip to the store for a little while but then I lapsed into silence thinking again about everything, "What is so funny that you're laughing like that? I don't think I've ever seen you laugh like that before."

"I'm crazy," I tell him.

"They do say there's a fine line between genius and insanity," he admits, "But I'm more likely to be crazy than you," he locks up the car, "It's in the DNA."

I shake my head.

"Fine," he says, "Don't explain," he sounds hurt.

The light bulb goes off in my brain as I realize I can explain it without involving any of my history, "I was thinking about sun stroke because of something going on at work, but then I decided it would have to be cloud stroke because of certain things, and it reminded me of that show your sister was watching and that made it funny because...because I'm silly."

"No, no," he says, "That is funny, but I don't think you really have to worry about make believe people. Cloud strike...pssh," he makes a mime that looks more like something Rei or Minako would do than Makoto, "You'll sort it out."

Of course he has no idea why what he just said cuts me to the quick and scares me even more about ever explaining anything to him, "I just need a few things," I tell him, "and then you can take me home."

He has to run again to catch up with me as I cross the parking lot.

"I can hold out and not talk just as long as you," Harris says, as I'm rummaging through the frozen food cabinets, losing my last hope that I can find something that will help me not be home sick. They have some spring rolls and some shrimp tempura. There are some boxes which are supposed to be easy microwaveable Chinese take out, "Please—tell me what's wrong. What did I say? I thought you were making fun of things as well. What the hell?"

I can feel the tears pricking at me, "Why is there nothing like sushi here?"

"We can go to a restaurant," he says, "or maybe at the fish counter-"

I feel like snapping back, _that's not the point_ but suddenly I can hear strains of an all too familiar melody whining out from inside my purse, and I dive into that instead. My hand is trembling as I lift the phone to my ear, and flip it open, not even daring to look at the caller ID to make sure that I remembered whose ring tone that was correctly, "_Moshi-moshi_,"

"_Moshi-moshi, Ami-chan_!" she says, jubilant, then after a pause, "(Are you okay?)"

"(Yes, I'm fine. I just—what are you? I mean—how did you? I didn't think the phones were working-)

"(They do...it's just...hey-)

"(It's so wonderful to hear from you!)" I feel my cheeks flushing, "(Things have been so strange, and you know I can't even find sushi here in the store! And the ramen tastes like paste)"

"(When did you eat paste?)" Minako asks. I can almost hear her shaking her head, "(Anyway, that's not important.)"

I try to slow my breathing. Harris seems a little overwhelmed by the sudden language switch and is watching me enthralled.

"(Are you sure you're okay?)" She continues.

"(Mostly. There've been some very...strange things happening, and...)"

"(Okay. Um...we can talk about that-)" there's a strange sound on the line and then says, "Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me. I wasn't paying attention. Go ahead," in English, "(Ami-chan, I have a favor to ask you)."

"Where are you?" I ask, wondering if the phones can reach all the way from Europe to America, which is where I thought Minako was, or perhaps they can reach within the same continent, especially as they haven't seemed to be able to work from America to Japan.

"Is everything alright?" Harris asks me.

"(Who is that?)" Minako asks.

"(A friend. He brought me shopping. You didn't answer me. Where are you?)"

"(Well, that all ties in with the favor...how close are you to the Los Angeles airport)?"

"(You know. I have no idea)," I turn to Harris, "How close are we to the Los Angeles airport?"

"It's about ten-fifteen miles away, why?"

"I think my friend needs picking up there..." I say, as I hear Minako exclaim happily, upon overhearing what Harris said, "Would that-"

Harris shrugs, "Why not? Maybe it'll cheer you up some."

Minako's squeal of response is so high-pitched I have to take the phone away from my ear for a moment. She is in the middle of apologizing when I replace it, "Just call me when you get here, okay? Okay!" and she hangs up.

"I suppose we'll have to get you food later," Harris remarks, "Come on."


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

_Author's Note:_

_I have NEVER been to LA let alone LAX, while some information here is garnered from the LAX website, the descriptions are probably more in tune with airports I have seen, OIA and so on. So, if anyone has actually seen LAX and sees any glaring errors that's why._

_Also as before any dialogue in ( ) should be taken as being spoken in Japanese._

I do not recall much of the drive to the airport. I'm not even sure if the radio was on and were it not for the fact that I know I wouldn't have got into anyone else's car I couldn't even be sure that Harris was the one who was driving, or how long it took us to get there. We left the grocery store very quickly. I don't know who got to the car first, no, wait, it must have been me because I couldn't get in, and had to wait for Harris to get there to unlock the doors. He made some comment about my eagerness, and how he was also excited to meet one of my friends, especially one that I was this excited about seeing again. I don't mean disrespect to Minako, but at that point any of the _senshi _would have garnered the same reaction from me, or even Naru or any of our class mates even those who I didn't particularly get along with (most of them), I would have been eager to see, because they were familiar, but the fact that it was a fellow _senshi_ and in the same area as me, that made it so much the better, because they would truly understand.

I stumbled through an apology for my snap at him, but by this point he had put it down to severe homesickness, and decided that it was best just to let it slide, which was very noble.

Right at that moment, though, the unconscious victims in the hospital couldn't have been further from my mind than biblical verses, the main focus was this: Airport. Minako. Airport. Minako.

For one frantic moment as we crossed the parking lot I realized I had no idea what terminal she was at or where, but sanity overtook and I retrieved the cell phone once more, praying in my heart, that it wasn't a fluke and it still would work.

Each ring of the call took felt as though it was stretched out to about an hour, as I stood waiting for the shuttle, Harris resting a hand on my shoulder and telling me to take it easy, waiting for her to pick up, but after a moment, "You're here already? Did you guys teleport?"

"No…I…where are you?"

"Terminal 2, waiting for my bags."

"Okay, we'll be right there!" I flip the phone closed, again, and scan the signs, "She's at terminal 2." I repeat to Harris even though he probably heard it all as we actually spoke in English.

"Terminal 2?" Harris finds this curious. It's not until we're in the shuttle and on the way that the reason comes up. There are signs detailing which planes come in where, and flights from Japan would be coming in to a different one. Terminal 2 mainly receives flights from Europe. I wonder if she was visiting her family or filming something…I try to remember what it was she was doing recently. How long has it been since we've been in touch with each other?

"Minako-chan has family in England," I explain, "She was probably visiting them just before."

"Chan?" Harris inquires, "That sounds Chinese. I'm even more confused."

"I didn't even tell you who we were meeting…" I realize as we disembark and look around for where baggage claim might be. There are so many people, bustling around carrying bags, shouting, complaining, trying to hold on to children and possessions but dropping both. Large crowds of rather pasty individuals are grouped around a woman with a large umbrella, while bags clatter around on conveyers and two others almost knock heads with each other both reaching for the same one.

Harris leans down to me, "Those look like they're probably from England or somewhere like it."

I look over at them; several of them are wearing t-shirts, even though the weather isn't all that warm, and one of the children is wailing about wanting to see Disney, and constantly being hushed by his mother. There is no sign of Minako.

I reach for the phone once again, when, "Ami-chan!" and I'm almost knocked over. How she can run so fast with so many cases I don't understand, but there is Minako arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tight, and then she releases me all trace of Usagi-like behavior disappears, as she scrapes stray strands of hair away from her face, and politely asks to be introduced to Harris, as I struggle to catch my breath.

"Minako this is…" Minako begins, gesturing towards Harris.

"Harris," both Harris and I say at the same time.

"Harris, Minako," I continue.

They shake hands, and Harris offers to take Minako's bags, as do I. There is much verbal tussling back and forth, and finally each of us winds up with something, and we start to make our way back across the concourse, when Harris stops for a moment and looks at the both of us as we stop mid-stream of excited Japanese about generic things.

"I'm sorry, the Japanese is rather rude of us," Minako remarks, "but it's been so long since-" then she trails off given Harris is shaking his head.

"No, I just...your name is the same as the girl that Ami and my sister were going on about the other day...and I'm in this moment of is that even possible? Or is Minako just a really common name in Japan like Ashley or Brittany is here..?"

Minako laughs as I flush red again, "Please let's clarify that in the car?" she says, as we're coming around the area that is the out pouring from the international terminal and she's pulled her hat down a bit further on her face, just in case.

Out of the terminals windows the sky looks overcast, but that turns out to just be the tinting. The day is almost blinding once we're outside, again, and the heat beats on you like a drill sergeant. We have some back and forth while we wait for the shuttle to the parking lot, and once it arrives. But this is mostly explaining to Harris that the reason Minako has no 'accent' when she speaks is because she's not exactly native Japanese, having grown up in Europe and then trying to decide what we're going to do once we get to the car. Does Minako have a hotel to stay at? Does she really have to sideways tease me about Harris at every opportunity?

We're in the car, again, before I realize it, Harris, of course, driving and me spending some time turned around to the back seat to talk to Minako, and forgetting how rude it is to talk in a language that someone else doesn't understand, when I slip over to avoid fumbling over words.

Minako is incredibly energetic, despite the fact she must have been on a long flight, and insists on taking us somewhere to eat, on her. Every once in a while she sticks a hand into one of her bags and I realize that Artemis must be hidden in there, given in plushie-look he can get passed all security issues and bypass quarantine.

"First we should answer Harris' question from before," I tell her, trying to distract.

"If you give me a bit more detail..." she says.

"Harris sister is a big fan of Japanese music," I explain, "and she was watching something about Plasma Witches from Xenon the other day."

Minako laughs, "Oh, no, that _was_ pretty awful."

Harris glances back at her through the rear-view mirror, "You've seen it?" he says, sounding hopeful.

"I don't generally watch things I'm in," she says, "but I have seen some portions of that one, but...unless there's someone else releasing music under the name Aino Minako, that is me."

"Oh, man. My sister is going to flip out and possibly jump you." He says.

Minako laughs, "She can't be any worse than Usagi-chan was," she turns to me, "can she?"

"It's been a while since I've seen Usagi-chan," I answer.

"Anyway, you're not going to distract me from the fact that I offered to pay for food," she leans forward between the two front seats as we're stopped at the nineteenth traffic signal, "I know you were at the grocery store when I called, and knowing Ami-chan, that means she's probably got no food at all at her apartment and is absolutely starving but too polite to say anything about it. How often is it that I get to see her? And the least I can do since you graciously gave up your gasoline to collect me, and refuse to take any money for that is take you out to dinner as well."

Harris is suitably floored by Minako's charm. She insists on taking us to a quite pricey Japanese restaurant that's inside one of the nearby hotels.

She charms the concierge at the restaurant as well. Talking to people seems to be one of Minako's inherent strong points. The exact opposite being true for me. We find ourselves at a very nice table in a corner, lit by paper lanterns from the ceiling and an array of wonderful smells coming from the _tepponyaki _grills in the kitchen, near my head the walls are paper panels and the whole room has a burnished warm wooden feel and, "Oh, my! They have _edamame_!"

"It's excellent. I stayed here when we were filming a video one time, and couldn't get over the food!"

Harris excuses himself for a moment to call home and let them know he hasn't been car-jacked and left for dead at the side of the road (his words), and Minako leans over hungry for information, "He's cute!" she exclaims, "So, how long have you been...?"

"Been?" I ask.

"(Dating!)" She exclaims, "(Don't make me spell it out for you!)"

"(Oh! But we're not!)"

"(Like you and that Urawa boy weren't?)" She says.

"(That was different. He had to move. Besides there are other things to be concerned about…)"

She sighs, "(Don't you remember what we always used to say about 'all work and no play?') she shakes her head, "(You remember the way I…okay, I'm not the best example to use here, and Usagi-chan, that's a pretty bad example in some respects, but finding some sort of in the middle here, especially because it's now…)" she looks up at me, "(There's something I'm missing here.)"

I nod, "But I'll explain it later, at my apartment, when other people won't be being excluded from the conversation."

She nods.

Harris returns and sits down. We order. I, of course, have to get _edamame_, and we get various kinds of sushi, and, well, actually it almost feels like we order some of everything on the menu by the time we're done. Things I haven't ever tasted, things I want to introduce Harris to, things Minako insists we must have because they're simply delicious, and what else is she going to spend her money on, if it's not spoiling good friends.

By the time Harris gets back we've received hot tea, water and some bowls of seaweed salad along with the _edamame_.

"I told them that we'd picked a friend of yours up from the airport, but I wasn't sure if it was wise to mention exactly who that was," he says, as he sits back down.

Minako looks a little perplexed for a moment and then nods, "Ah, your sister, yes? You said she liked the music and things..."

Harris gave a sort of grin...grimace, "Well, like is a bit mild. I tend to call her a rabid freak...but then I'm also um...let's say, not really a face of some of your culture's media entertainment products."

"Neither am I," Minako explains, "and I was actually in some of them."

I laugh.

"But seriously, if I don't talk you into coming to meet my sister and she finds out that I had dinner with you, and I'm not a rabid fan at all, she will hurt me so badly even Ami won't be able to fix me."

"I think we can arrange something," Minako says, "I am going to be here for some time, and we definitely can't have you being hurt or killed."

Later that evening Harris drops Minako and me off at my apartment. It seems almost as though no time has passed since we picked her up from the airport but the LED clock on the microwave says that it's almost 11 p.m. I don't feel tired at all.

We've loaded Harris's phone with pictures and a short video special message from Minako for his sister, and sent him home with the leftovers of Minako's favorite foods so that she can have that to tide her over until we can sort out a meeting that will make all her Minako-fan-forum friends jealous.

"What's wrong?" Minako asks, as I lock the many bolts on the door. She turns on one of the light switches and messes around for a while before she realizes that the light was already on and she only needed to tug the pull cord. I pull down the blinds, "She can't be that bad..."

"She does remind me very much of Usagi-chan," I explain, "But that's not the only part of it..."

Once the blinds are closed Minako bends down to let out her white cat, whose been waiting mostly patiently, appeased with tidbits of food that Minako would sneak into her bag at the restaurant. She gives him half of a tray of some of the leftovers that we kept, and I go to the refrigerator to find something for him to drink.

"My problem with Usagi-chan was that she lacked focus," she puts up a hand and refuses my offer for a drink, "I had my fill at _Kyoto_. Plus, she was blabbing private, sensitive, _senshi _information in front of civilians, like my manager, and me, given you had no idea who I was at that time. This girl, she's just a normal fan type, those are easy to deal with. Well, so long as she doesn't think I'm going to be doing a concert or something..." she sits down on the worn couch, and glances at the trunk I have next to it, which is operating as a coffee table.

I had forgotten in all the excitement that the coffee table is piled high with notes. My laptop is sitting on it, but in sleep mode, and there are papers with my handwriting all over the place, linking this, circling that, highlighted portions of newspaper articles, and from the looks of my printer, several pieces of information I left printing finished doing so while I was out. There's bits from Tokyo during the local battle, forum pages with more recent things printed. I've got them separated into several piles.

Minako picks up the top chart and scans it, "What is this?" her voice switches instantly from amiable to Business. I'm talking to Venus now even though she hasn't transformed.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: I'm trying to keep chronology between the other stories I've written that are PGSM-esque. Thought I should note given references to Kaguya and Urawa Ryu are not really PGSM canon. _

FOUR

"It looks familiar to you, too," I say, unable to keep disappointment from my voice. I was still more than half-hoping to have my fears brushed aside as idiotic paranoia.

She sighs, "I'm going to say something futile: Please tell me you're doing a doctoral dissertation or thesis or something on the conditions aroused in people by the _youma _attacks in Tokyo, trying to find some kind of wonderful medical explanation to…" she tails off, as I shake my head.

"I'm sure you see how recent the date is on that chart, and the name is definitely not Japanese."

"I'm sure there were some foreign visitors attacked by the _youma_," she points out.

I nod, "Three that I know of, but that's not the point."

She puts the paper down on it's pile, "I said I was 'going to say something futile'," she points out.

Artemis reappears now, having been listening while eating. He jumps up onto the trunk, nimbly missing any of the piles of papers and sits down glancing between us, "How long has this been going on?"

"As far as I've been able to tell, not long. I've been trying to find out if there've been any cases at other hospitals in the area, but I don't have much in the way of clearance authority…I haven't found anything going back through our own hospital records though."

"That's something…" Minako says, but it's there hanging between us and waiting patiently for one of us to give it voice: the fact that it's only a matter of time, or it's possible that they could have moved from somewhere else.

America is so much bigger than Japan, and given some of the things that were on the message boards there is the possibility that it has _senshi _of it's own. We were all incarnated in Tokyo, but there's only five of us, I remember Rei and I having a conversation late one night in CROWN about whether or not there might be a Sailor Pluto or Neptune...we haven't encountered any, but right now there are just rumors and if we don't take the initiative and act to stop this, then it seems like there will be a huge mess including lots more casualties.

I've always been a logical one, but considering what's happened with everything, it's harder and harder for me to continue to reason myself out of believing in fate. We were drawn together in Tokyo, and now some of us, at least, are here, in America, where it might well be happening again. Is this the way it's going to be forever from now on? Any time we think we're at rest, something else will pop up no matter where we go?

"How do you want to proceed?" I ask her.

She frowns, "Is there any way to get records checks on the other hospitals?"

I nod, "If I can see what someone else's clearance is then yes. I can get into the system as them. Would be better than just upping my own clearance…then I can get things sent over, if there are any."

"If there are any," Minako nods, "but as far as we know there's nothing stopping them. Who knows how long they could have been working over here."

"Well, there have been some forum postings about cosplayers out of place...but I don't know how true that is."

Artemis lowers his head for a moment, "I would volunteer to scout around the area, but I'm not familiar at all, and would probably wind up getting lost or picked up by this 'animal control'."

Minako leans over and massages his ears to try and prevent him becoming overly forlorn, "We can both wander around tomorrow. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find a guide book. Ami-chan, do you know whereabouts your patients lived?"

I nod, and take a piece of paper from the back of the address book I have by the land-line phone I never use, and write them down for her.

"Okay. Well, while you're at work tomorrow Artemis and I can look around. I can potentially talk to people, and he can sneak around and snoop. We've done it before."

Artemis nods ruefully, "and we were completely by ourselves then."

I recall Minako having spoken every once in a while about her time in England, and encountering enemies there, but I had thought with what we did in Tokyo, that was over and done with, completely, "Is it the Dark Kindgom, again?"

"That's what we'll find out," Artemis says, firmly, "That seemed pretty done with, I must say," he seems to be fighting the temptation to flop over onto his back and let Minako rub his belly, "although as you know it's not against their tactics to move to a different country when one isn't going their way. Alternately, this could just be something that was left here by them before they were destroyed, and woke up recently." he doesn't seem to be believing the last option very much, but right now all we have are hypotheses to be tested and eliminated.

"Or it could be something wonderful and new," Minako remarks, sarcastically, "I'm sure the Moon Kingdom had more than one faction of enemies and also that there's any number of random Kaguya-like things which had nothing to do with us at all."

Artemis frowns, "I would talk to Luna and see what she remembers along that line, but let's make sure we have something concrete to tell them before we worry them. If it's something we can easily take care of, I'd rather do it, without trying to drag in people who are in Tokyo and can't easily afford to get over here to help out."

Minako and I agree, although she makes a low comment about being able to ship the others over if we really need it. Artemis repeats his desire to not worry them unnecessarily, and we consent to discuss things again the following evening after I get home from work and they get back.

As I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling and counting chips in the paint. I realize how long a day it's going to be tomorrow. It's only a few hours now before I have to be up and at work, and I'm still wired and wanting to do things. I want to get this sorted out. Even though deep down I fear it's going to take quite some time.

I don't know when or if I get to sleep, for sure. There does seem to be a period of silence, not thinking, given it's interrupted by the alarm going off, and I am pulled sluggishly towards thinking again, and being awake, but it all seems far too soon. I stumble from bedroom to bathroom, and back again, to shower and dress, trying to be as quiet as I can, given Minako is sleeping on my couch.

Minako is sleeping on my couch.

I blink at her, and rub my eyes. I stop and look again. No. She is there. I'm not insane. I just hadn't quite let myself believe it. I'm so silly at times. Of course, she's there. We picked her up at the airport and went out to dinner with her. I try not to smack myself in the forehead but the temptation is fierce. Instead I try to find something edible in the kitchen for her, Artemis, and myself, and try to do so quietly, given the room is open plan. A white-cream blur jumps up onto the counter top and startles me. I hope I covered my mouth before the squeak escaped. If Minako heard she makes no sign.

"_Gomen nasai_," Artemis remarks, bowing his head.

"No, it's okay," I tell him, "I'm just out of the habit of having cat's around."

He gives a slight nod.

"I really don't have much food…" I confess.

"We'll manage. Worry not," he nudges my arm with his so very soft head, "Get to work."

I bid him thank you, grab my things and head out to the bus stop, wondering if I should have woken Minako to show her how the bathroom worked.

As I ride the bus to the hospital I make notes of things I need to look up and try to work out whose clearance it would be best to fake. My heart starts to pound before I'm part way down the bus's steps. I hate this lying and sneaking around. I wish I could just go straight to them and explain. It was a little easier to sneak information from places when I didn't know the people attached to the names.

Dr. Harper is rifling through papers at the main reception desk when I walk in. He pays little attention to me as I go into the back and put my bag in the locker. I make my first round to the unconscious girl. Machines beep and monitor her but there's been no change. She's laying there staring at the ceiling, her red dyed hair spread out behind her head. The expression is so similar to the one Naru-san had right before we faced off with the super-youma. It makes me shiver. I wish there was something I could do. I have the fanciful vision of brushing my hand through her hair, across her forehead and her waking up and explaining everything that happened, but that's not likely. We either need Usagi-chan over here to work a healing, or to kill the _youma_, if it is a _youma_. I still cling to the hope that's it's not, that the tests we've been running will come back with some sort of virus or illness that we've forgotten and can treat, but so far nothing, the hospital specialists are running themselves ragged and her parents are understandably agitated.

The remaining victim is a few rooms down. The girl who was with him has been moved by her parents to another hospital. I'm only able to peek through the door, but it's enough to show me the results are still the same. His parents are sitting by his bed, they stop by every morning to visit on the way to their respective jobs, and rotate night duty. The mother is working to get Family Medical Leave, and will be here often today. I daren't go inside, because it's heart breaking to not be able to assure them that everything is okay, when I have no answers to give, especially when my Spanish language skills are a lot worse off than my English.

"Miss Mizuno!"

I turn to find the duty nurse behind me, "Harper wants you to work on 12 and 7, first thing."

I apologize for dallying and start to head out, but she stops me.

"It breaks my heart too," she says, "that other one is about as old as my niece, but don't let it get you down too much. Something'll come back and we'll have them up and out of here by the end of the week."

I nod, and make my way to examining room twelve.

Most of the morning is taken up with patients, two boys who were trying to fly off their neighbor's roof, apparently. A patient who has sliced their arm with a kitchen knife and all the muscles are visible where the skin should be. A man who has been in several times before for various injuries, but refuses offers for counseling, or support. Speculation is rife in the staff room as to whether his spouse or significant other is beating him up, or if he is a prostitute or just severely unlucky. He refuses to talk to anyone, so there's nothing we can do except patch him up and send him back out into the world. There is another pool going on as to how quickly we will see him back in. I just hope he doesn't come back in a body bag.

I cut out from the lull of break time to try and sweet talk my way to one of the computers, and hopefully discover something. The reception area is fairly quiet only one person making an inquiry. I feel my heart lift, as I walk over, and then stop, what can I do? I've gone through several different scenarios, but the most likely taken, hopefully, is this. I try to remember the names of the two people on reception; I think its Jack and Wendy? They were both on shift when I came in that morning, and aren't likely to get out any time soon given we're short one person on paternity leave.

Jack is engaged with the person, so I go over to Wendy.

"Something I can do for you?" she snaps, suspicious. Often interns try to talk the receptionists into doing things for them so they don't have to. This is probably what she's expecting.

"I'm short on things to do," I explain. She looks as though she's going to make some kind of sarcastic comment to this, so I quickly add, "and I know you've probably been here since who knows when, so I thought if you wanted to take a break, I could cover for you for a little while?"

Jack, of course, catches this, "Hey, what about me?" he demands.

"Well, I can stay here for you as well..." I scan my eyes quickly to her name tag to make sure I have the right name, "…once, Winnie gets back."

"You snooze, you lose," Winnie says, and disappears from her chair.

I slip into it quickly, trying to keep one eye out to make sure that no one else has come up to sign in or check on how soon they're going to be seen. I've seen some of the staff leave patients here waiting, on purpose, just so they can finish a conversation, but I don't want to be like that.

I manage to pull up the appropriate network of hospitals, and have just managed to log in, when several people come up. Jack is still engaged with the person he was dealing with when I sat down, who doesn't speak English very well, and is getting rather frustrated, so I tab across from that window and start handing out sign in forms. Thankfully, my batch of people does speak English, and seem to not need so much help right away, two of them are together and the other person is by himself. I quickly tab back and type in the search and set that going, but don't attempt to make small talk with them. I never know what to say in such a situation. One on one with someone in an exam room is usually fairly easy, except for that one patient who abjectly refused to talk to 'the chink (something rude)', so far things have been fairly easy. Especially as it's only recently I've been allowed to see patients, by myself, without the backing of one of the senior staff members. I just hope I don't lose that trust by getting caught doing this.

One of the women comes back over with her paperwork and I begin to input it. The search finishes part way through my input and the screen automatically pops up. There are some results which match. I quickly send them to print, my heart feels as though it's jumping up into my throat. I daren't log out until everything has spooled to the printer though, so I tab back and continue inputting. The woman says something to me, but I don't hear her. I look over at her, eyes wide.

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to startle you," she says, "They've really got you guys jumping today, huh?"

"Oh, oh, yes," I answer, not quite paying attention.

"I was saying, it's a pretty bracelet, where'd you get it?"

"Oh, my friend gave it to me," I answer, "but thank you. I haven't seen anything like it anywhere here." it's not exactly a lie. I wouldn't have it if it wasn't for Usagi-chan after all.

"Oh," she sounds, slightly disappointed, "I don't suppose you know where your friend got it? I'd like to get something for Sherri once we get through this," she glances back over to the woman she came in with. I glance at the paperwork so I don't have to speculate, if it's mother-daughter, girlfriends, sisters, or just friends. Daughter, okay. I realize then that they've been in before, about two or three weeks ago, I can't remember what for, right now though.

"I'm sorry but no, actually I don't, and she gave it to me a few years ago, in school." I explain trying to finish inputting the registration information and make sure I can pounce on the printer as soon as it's done.

"Not around here." she realizes.

"No, in Tokyo," I give her a smile, and send her stuff to the printer also, and run over there. I fold what's printed so far, and slip it into my mail slot, as quickly as I can, and then bring hers back so that she can sign it, along with the privacy information forms, and hand over the ID bands and things and ask them to wait a few minutes, hopefully, so that they can be called to an exam room. Then the man shows up with his paperwork, and the cycle begins again. In the mean time, Winnie comes back and shoos Jack away.

"You better not want us to do some write-ups as payback," Winnie tells me.

Makoto would probably say something like, "Thank you so much for letting me take a break, (rude word) see if I ever do a favor for you again." but I am not her, so I just give her a vague attempt at a smile, and assure her that it's fine, praying that Jack decides he only needs a short break.

He comes back after twenty minutes, which is fortunate, because I really should be back on the floor a bit before then. I manage to slip the papers into my purse in my locker, before trouble hits again in the form of a car accident, which means I'm not back at the apartment until an hour later than I had intended.

It's too dark on the bus to read anything not electronic. I have three messages on my cell phone I realize as I sit there willing the bus journey to magically become shorter than it was and wondering where the annoyed beeping is coming from.

I hadn't even thought to check to see how Minako's search was doing. I have a brief panicked moment of imagining her calling me to say she was lost and asking directions, and thus becoming even more lost and getting attacked by thugs and vagabonds somewhere down a dark alley, before my brain points out that even if Minako was attacked, those thugs would be extremely sorry that they picked her to pounce on in two seconds flat.

One of the messages is from Minako. There's no word on the search, but for some reason she wants me to call her back and let her know if there's anything I'm allergic to. One of the messages is from Harris's sister, she's rambling something far too quickly for me to follow asking about something which sounds like it's to do with the MP3's I had sent her via CD via Harris, and then one is from Harris saying he realizes he has no idea how to get in touch with my friend after all, given he doesn't actually have a land line number to my apartment, and he didn't want to just drop by there unannounced what with jet-lag and everything. By this time the bus has arrived at my stop and I make my way slowly up to the apartment.

The lights are on and I can make out a shadow moving around inside, as I try to unlock the door. The second up latch unlocks once I've got the key in and Minako pulls the door open.

"I wasn't sure what time you'd be home…" she explains, "I take it things were busy."

"Just a bit," I answer, closing the door behind me, "I'm sorry I didn't get in touch before. How was your day?"

"Unfortunately productive," she answers.

I nod, "I was able to get some information, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet."

Minako nods.

I look at the clock. Great, and we still don't have food.

"I was thinking," she said, "There seem to be some delivery places which have a nice enough menu…but I didn't want to order, given I'm not exactly sure what's good as far as those go."

I give a sheepish smile, "It depends, most of them seem to have a ratio of what's good versus what's fastest."

She laughs, "How about we go for something in the middle?"

Thirty minutes later, we're leaning around the 'breakfast bar' in the kitchen. It's the counter area which separates the kitchen from the living room. Artemis sits nearby, eating also. He has some cat food, which Minako had brought with her, and it's then I find out that she has taken the liberty of re-stocking my fridge, somewhat. There is now fruit juice, and milk, eggs, bread, various packages of delicatessen meats, and in the freezer, some batches of egg rolls, and other Asian foods, which are easily microwaveable. She apparently remembers that I am nothing like Makoto in the kitchen, which is good.

After I stop crying and thanking her about this, and she insists that it's okay, and if I want to pay her back, just let her stay there, and consider it her payment towards rent, we settle back down to business. Me: reading through the medical reports as quickly and thoroughly as I can. She: going back through the rest of the notes I've been making and making marks on a map of the area that she has procured on her travels, and then after I make my guess-diagnoses, she says she will recount what she and Artemis have discovered.

Most of the medical reports that have been flagged, are thankfully, not right, I'm on the next to last one, when I read the distressing note that the patient is still in the hospital currently, and was admitted about two weeks ago, inconclusive tests.

"What was that?" Minako asked, "It almost sounded like you cursed."

I feel my cheeks heat up.

"Oh," she says, "Damn," she slides over on the couch to read over my shoulder. Then snatches the paper from me and re-reads it hastily, and then dives back towards the map.

Now I slide over the couch towards her. She has made blue marker stars at the places where the two people at our hospital were picked up, and then there's a neon line, which I'm guessing is the route they took today. It bisects the two places but there's a loop I recognize as one of the bus routes, and an orange star off to the side.

She stabs at it, "Right here is where Artemis felt we should get off the bus. There was definitely something, once we got close, but it took straining to notice it. I read the street she pointed out, it's the address of the woman who is still at the other hospital, "We walked around for a while seeing if we picked up on anything else…there really wasn't much of anything for a while, but once we started coming back this way, there was something. There are no other reports?"

I shake my head. The last one is again, nothing. I re-read. That area would be in the jurisdiction of a non-network hospital, which might make it a lot more difficult to get the information, though, "but I think we have more than enough cause for concern…" I add, ruefully.

She sighs, "Do you feel like going on patrol tonight?"

I nod, "Not really, but we have to. We're more than due for another attack, not that _youma_ particularly have a set pattern…but the longer it goes unchecked, the more bold it's going to get, right?"

"I don't even want to speculate." Minako counters, grabbing her jacket, as we head for the door, Artemis hot on our heels.


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE

It is getting a chilly outside as we race down the steps and onto the street. We want to be quick and cover as much area as possible, but we don't want to attract attention, which might be impossible, considering we're two fairly young girls wandering around the streets of Los Angeles, in what is rapidly becoming night. About the only worse flag we could set off is if we got out the map and started studying it, thus looking lost and vulnerable.

We take the left-hand path as we leave the safety of the lights around the apartment. The theory is that we will loop around and come back, eventually. We make small talk on the way around; or rather Minako tries to drag information from me about Harris. It does serve as a distraction to prevent us from dwelling on the fact this may well be a fruitless search. There are only two of us and LA is very large. There are so many areas the _youma_ could be that we are not. Artemis keeps a few feet ahead of us down in the shadows along the edge of walls.

"Are you sure?" Minako is saying.

"Yes, I'm sure," I answer, "What I mean is: he is nice, and has been very helpful, but…"

"Most men usually won't be willing to do so much nice stuff for a person if they weren't interested that way," she counters.

"But that's not the sort of thing I have time for."

"You made time for Urawa-kun."

It's all I can do not to laugh at that one. If Urawa hadn't been psychic the relationship, or whatever it was probably wouldn't have worked nearly so well. I do have fond feelings for him, still, that I can't deny, but I never quite understood what those feelings really meant. I liked having him around. I like talking to him. I miss the fact that we haven't spoken in a while but despite what everyone seems to think nothing like _that_ ever happened between us. The most he got was a peck on the cheek when he was leaving at the station and we hugged.

I didn't officially even get to tell him I was going to the States, but knowing him he knows anyway…and that still is a little creepy, "No, not really. He mostly just agreed to fit around my schedules and managed to pop up at convenient lulls. We haven't written to each other in over a year."

Minako gives a slightly frustrated sigh, "I think you're trying to change the subject," she says.

"We have more important things to worry about. A relationship of that nature would have been difficult with just my work schedule alone, add this on top and there's just no point."

"That's really the sort of thing you should let him decide."

"Surely if he was interested he would have mentioned that before now." I can hear myself sounding irritated. My voice is a lot more clipped and snippy than I had intended.

"Maybe he's nervous," she says, "Asking out a smart, beautiful, intelligent, caring, foreign woman…that has to be a bit intimidating for a person. Alternately and I hate to say this, you might have totally missed it. You're pretty oblivious to that sort of thing, Ami-chan."

I scramble for some means to change the subject, "What about you?" I ask.

"What about me?" she turns back towards me. I had stopped to try and shake the irritability out of my head, and let things slide.

"I mean…what have you been doing? We kept Harris busy with anecdotes of the concert and everything, and then with all this I never got the chance to ask what you've been up to or if you've seen any of the others recently?"

"I've done a little modeling," she explains, "I've been spending some time in Europe, as you may have guessed. I have a sister, apparently," she shrugs, "Boss-san and I talked Rei-chan into working a little again. She and I did a modeling stint together in New York. She might actually still be out there."

I'm not able to say anything for a moment. My brain can't quite fathom the idea that Rei was talked into that, "You and Rei-chan?" I ask her.

"Well, it's not like _that_," Minako remarks.

I blink at her for a moment, "What's not like…?" but my answer is cut short, by the sounds of someone screaming and yelling.

Artemis follows suit, thundering back towards us down the alleyway, shouting and we tear off quickly in the direction of the noise before we're even able to think about what we're doing properly. Instinct. Pure and simple. Which, of course, for some reason over-writes that one portion of the brain that points out we should _henshin_, until Artemis shouts that at us, also.

Around the corner, we're almost on top of the source of the problem, before we do so. That blanket of warmth and power, wrapping around from head to toe, energizing…sharpening…and jolting back to reality all in the space of a few seconds. Blinking for a moment, not quite recognizing Venus next to me, golden hair, shining in the reflection of car lights zipping down the nearby bridge, as we stand below in the alley. It's been so long since I last did this, and there were times I didn't even think that I'd be able to any more or would have to ever again. I'm latently hoping that we didn't just give a homeless person sweet dreams, or nightmares.

"Quickly," Venus remarks, and we run again, around the corner.

I can just make out a woman being held against the wall of the alley, by large strong hands. The owner of the hands is in shadow, growling something unintelligible, and the woman is struggling and kicking, and thrashing her head around to try and prevent them from touching her face.

"Something seems strange here…" I say.

Venus nods.

Artemis crouches down in the shadow of some boxes.

"Let her go!" we say in unison.

There's some kind of response from the alleyway. This adds to the unusual factor. It almost makes sense, something rare in _youma_. I feel my spine grow cold, and it's not just the short skirt in the strange climate.

The woman twists her head towards her and her eyes don't seem to be able to focus on us.

"I don't see you letting her go!" Venus continues. I can feel the air around her humming at a higher vibration as she twists her hands in a silent power command. The bright beam cracks over the top of us illuminating the alleyway ahead brilliantly for a fraction of a second enough for us to see that this is not a _youma_, but some other kind of assailant. Shocked by the brilliance he lets go of the woman moving his hands to shield his face and stumbling backwards into the opposite wall.

I pelt him with hail for a few moments as we push forward hoping to force him back away from the woman. He seems to think better of attacking and stumbles away down the alley.

"Mercury!" Venus says, switching back to Japanese, "You check her. I'll make sure he's gone."

I nod, and move towards the woman, who is understandably in shock, but is rather incoherent for other reasons, not quite apparent. I check her over hoping to assess if he'd injured her in some way before we got there. Her hair is streaked with red and blonde and black. She has make-up on but especially around the eyes it's smudging. Fake nails, some of which are broken off and bleeding. Her head lolls as I try to talk to her, about the only thing I manage to make out is that she apparently likes my hair. She won't tell me her name, or anything else useful, but she does know some very colorful language.

"Is she alright?" Venus comes back fairly quickly lamenting the maze that is the alleyways around here.

"She needs a hospital…" I relent.

"He hurt her?"

"I think she's on drugs," I remove my hand from her forehead and put my glove back on.

Venus disappears in shimmer and Minako pulls out her cell phone, "Is it 911 or 999 here? I can never remember."

An hour later we're talking to police and medical professionals at the hospital I work at. The woman was on drugs, a minor overdose. Speculation is that the man was probably her pimp, or a disappointed client. We're telling the slight fabrication that we heard the screaming, and came running to find the man disappearing and the woman on the ground. We're thanked for vigilance but cautioned that it's not safe for the two of us to be wandering around so late at night ourselves, and to take more steps. The policeman suggests 'mace'. Minako explains to me quickly, in Japanese, that he does not mean the medieval weapon, but some sort of repellent spray. They call it 'pepper spray' in some of our textbooks I realize, particularly nasty if it hits you in your face.

"Maybe we should limit our patrols to during the day?" Minako remarks, as I take her down the corridor to see the first girl, given we're there anyway, "It'll be safer…and they don't seem to care what time of day it is when they attack, at least they didn't used to."

I chew on this, "I won't be able to help you much," I point out.

"I did this for months in England with no one but Artemis, and not nearly so strong power wise back then for a while," she counters, "and I do at least have Artemis with me here."

"I can help if I have a day off…" I say, even though she's shaking her head, "I don't want this to ruin your vacation…and it's my place to help as much as it is yours."

She snorts, dismissively, "Better impede on my vacation than ruin your career."

"Amy!" I look up to find one of the reception people in the doorway, "Dr. Cassien said you might still be here. Large group being brought in. Can you help?"

"Go, go," Minako urges before I can ask her if it's alright, or apologize.

I find myself grabbing a random white coat from the break room on the way, and following him out into the corridor, "What is it? Car accident? Shooting?"

"We don't know. Details are very sketchy…" We make it back out to the area that is sometimes triage, just as the ambulances arrive.

Seven people are brought in, most of them unconscious, a couple injured, one semi-coherent, but rocking and mumbling.

The reports come filtering through from the few not injured or catatonic friends who arrive shortly after the ambulance that they were coming back, in a group, from some kind of bar towards the university, when something attacked them. I find my heart up in my throat again at that word 'something' not 'someone' or 'some gang' but something. Meaning, not human, meaning it's probably our _youma_. Several of them tried to fight it, but were thrown around like rag dolls. The police do not seem thrilled by the 'it' qualifier, and press for more details, apparently feeling they're trying to cover for someone, or cover themselves.

We wind up having to ask one of the police officers to leave the exam room because of the attitude he was manifesting towards the patient, who was already severely traumatized. Given everyone's description of the 'thing' is fairly similar, finally the police relent and decide that the attacker was wearing some kind of Halloween costume and on PCP.

I feel my stomach sink. It's not that I wish we hadn't saved the woman because the man would more than likely have killed her and these people will hopefully survive…but that our _youma_ out there, attacking groups of people now, and we're no closer to finding out where or what it is. Just that it's definitely here.

I make sure I know exactly where they say they were attacked, so that we can add it to our map. Cassien ushers me off shift at almost 9 a.m. when it becomes apparent we really can't do anything about the victims lack of consciousness. I find Minako asleep on a cot in the back room snuggling her phone.

Waking Minako is fairly easy, just the presence of my hand about to touch her shoulder and her eyes open and she blinks up at me, "You're done?" she asks, half in English, half in Japanese.

I nod, "They've told me to go on home, and take the rest of the day."

"Ami-chan…" Minako chides, "You're the only person I've ever met who can make free time seem like punishment!"

I flush.

"Come on, come on. Let's go out for breakfast. My treat!"

I know better than to protest, because I don't have the energy for another argument, and another round of platitudes. Minako seems to know the area better than I do even though I've been living here for almost a year. I remember hazily that she has been here before while shooting…something…and she and Artemis were also running around here the past few days with a map and everything. She finds a fairly quiet restaurant. The sort my mother would call a 'hole in the wall', but just the smells coming out of the door and down the street are enough to make me ten times as hungry than I was already.

We sit down in a booth, and Minako orders us both coffee. I lean on the table and massage my temples. We both strategically avoid talking about anything for about five minutes, until the coffee arrives and the waitress agrees to wait for one of us to signal her before coming over to take the order.

Minako says, "So…"

And I answer, "Yes…"

And we lapse back into silence again, drinking.

The waitress comes over and fills our cups with more of the steaming brown bitter liquid, "If you guys are interested I can have the chef just whip up some of the all around breakfasts." she says, "Looks like it's been a long night. Hows about I bring some chocolate chip muffins over for you to get started on…?"

We both agree that whatever it was she just said would be an absolutely excellent idea, wonderful, and she disappears humming to herself and randomly attacking other people eating in the restaurant with refills of coffee as she goes.

I try not to rest my head down on the table. It has a plastic protective surface resting over the blue and red checked cloth on it but that's decidedly sticky, even though the waitress wiped it down for us before we sat.

"Did we actually learn anything we didn't know?" Minako asks.

I sigh, and circle my wrists around to pop them, "What little I heard from the victims talking it is a _youma_."

"Hm-mmm," she says, muted, massaging her own temples, "and it's strong…" she sighs.

"Well…it's been going on unchecked for…" I shake my head, "actually I thought I heard one of them say they someone came and helped...but..."

The waitress returns and checks how we like eggs cooked, and sets the muffins down, "What is wrong?" she asks, "Did somebody die?"

"Not yet," Minako answers.

The waitress shrugs and disappears.

"So…" I say.

Minako looks up. She picks some of the chocolate chips off the muffin and sucks on them slowly, thinking.

"Who were you talking to on the phone?"

She raises her head. The look is innocent but devilish at the same time, "What makes you think I was talking to someone?"

"Well, now I also think you're plotting something…" I point out. I act offended, but the distraction is welcome. Anything to not think about the _youma_ for a few minutes.

"Ah, well, you'll find out soon enough."

"As long as it's not Harris," I remark before I can stop myself.

Her devilish smile widens, and I realize what I said, "No," she says, "You can rest easy on that score, for now. You'll find out."

I've only eaten the bottom off my muffin when the waitress brings out the breakfasts she was speaking of: scrambled eggs, or _omelettes_, sausage, bacon, hash brown potatoes, and three pancakes each. She also sets down bowls of fresh fruit, melon, grape, pineapple, orange and strawberries.

Minako eats her strawberries first, dipping them in the cream on the pancakes. I opt for the bacon, instead, eating with my fingers for a while to avoid clumsiness with the knife and fork.

"Maybe we should have gone to your flat…" Minako says.

"It's okay," I say, "Would people really care what we talk of? (Besides we can just talk like this)."

"No," she says, "Probably not. Especially now. (But there's plenty of leftovers there and I probably have a very sulky cat, given we couldn't leave a window open for him, lest we come back to an empty place.)" she checks the time, opening and closing her phone.

I excuse myself to the bathroom.

When I come back she's had the leftovers boxed and is answering a text message, "_Ne_" she says, "(Did you try to get hold of anyone else about this? Or at all?)"

I explain about trying to call Usagi-chan and getting no response at all, not even voice mail. After that, I confess, I didn't try anyone else for fear of disappointment.

"You're something else," she says, in English, as I pick up my box and eat the muffin cap. We cross the restaurant to the door, only a few short paces.

"I didn't even think the phones worked." I try.

"Even an elementary scientist knows," she points out, "that you try something at least three times to check results."

I say nothing given she's completely correct.

Artemis is waiting somewhat dejected on the windowsill. He explains he had to hiss at a perfectly nice young woman to avoid being taken home with her. Minako teases him but seems very grateful. I let everyone in.

"How long were you planning on being here anyway?" I ask Minako, unasked questions about hotels and keys hover between us baited and ready.

"As long as it takes," she answers, "There really aren't any set plans." she opens Artemis a can of salmon and he jumps up on the counter, muttering a little.

I pull open the curtains.

"Should we call the others then? If you and I pool surely we could get them here?"

"You need to shower and sleep or sleep and shower." she counters, "Then we can worry about everything else."

"But…" the protest dies on my lips, and Minako ushers me to bed. She promises to wake me in a few hours so that I can finish the last of my breakfast, or eat something else.

I don't remember what I dream.

Three and a half hours later Minako knocks on the door. I've been awake for a few minutes, blinking out in the day haze of the light peeking through the edges of the blind in the bedroom, trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I'm not on a cot in one of the back rooms of the hospital.

"You're up?" she asks, knocking again, softly.

"_Hai_," I answer, still not quite sure how I got there.

I go and shower, and come back. Minako is ably heating things up in the microwave. Artemis is curled up asleep on the windowsill, bathed in sunlight. He rolls and stretches almost falling off the sill, but just managing to stay on.

"Feeling better?" she asks.

I nod, as she offers me a plate of pancakes, and we sit down at the breakfast bar again, "Calling people?" I ask, "Should we?"

My phone starts chiming _Sakura Fubuki. _


	6. Chapter 6

SIX

"Answer it, silly—it's not going to bite you," Minako jolts me out of my shocked paralysis.

I pick up the phone just before it vibrates off the counter. _Sakura Fubuki_ is almost through it's second chorus as I flip the phone open and bring it shakily to my ear, "_Moshi-moshi_," I manage without stammering, "Rei-chan?"

"Who else would it be?" she asks sounding more than a little amused.

I say nothing for a moment—feeling crestfallen.

"Are you guys going to stop talking about me any time soon? I'd like to stop sneezing," she giggles. It reminds me how the first time I met her I thought she could never laugh—everything seemed so serious to her. Of course, I'm sure that the others probably thought I would never get my head out of books to relax for more than a few seconds either, "But, anyway-" she says.

"Rei-chan, if you're calling from the airport-"

As Minako looks over to me I suddenly realize that this is who she was in touch with earlier.

"No-no," Rei replies, "Actually I'm in a taxi. What's your apartment number?"

Minako takes the phone from me before I drop it, "Breathe Ami-chan, breathe," she instructs, guiding me towards the stool, which I almost miss, "It's easy just in through the nose and back out. You do it all the time," she pats my knee, "You were right," she says to Rei, with an amused look in my direction.

"You guys are both hideously mean," I point out, scrabbling for my glasses which are by now askew, and covered in fingerprints, apparently and so need cleaning.

"I told you that I thought Rei-chan was in New York still," Minako says, and then apparently Rei is saying something so she goes back to the phone and walks over to the refrigerator and leafs through the bill sorter I have stuck to it with magnets. She pulls out an envelope and reads off part of the address then she hangs up and gives me back the phone. I cling to it. I'm half expecting it to start chiming again with someone else calling for directions or asking to be picked up. Nothing happens.

"Shatcho's been after Rei-chan and I to do some work with this US band—well it's a concert, actually," Minako explains, "and given Rei-chan was in New York and that's a lot closer than Japan—I thought with her help we might be able to narrow things down before we ship everyone over for what's hopefully nothing, and she would have a reason..."

"They'll be mad," I point out, "That we didn't say anything."

Minako's head bobs from side to side as though she's bouncing this idea around in her brain, "but don't you think they'd do the same for us if something were going on in Tok—?"

"Alright, alright," I say and pick up a fork to finish the last of the pancakes.

Artemis wakes up properly a few minutes later, almost falling off the window sill again startled by the appearance of the fire senshi. He adjusts himself so that he can begin washing. Minako has the map spread out on the coffee table adding on the place where the latest attack occurred. Trying to see if there is a pattern is more like needle in a haystack.

Rei is wearing blue jeans and a black tank top and has a long-sleeved red shirt tied at her waist. She taps on the window and waves with the hand that's not pulling a small trundle suitcase. I run to the door and let her in. Aside from the trundle case she has a large over the shoulder bag and a canvas purse. With Minako's help we get everything in easily. Then there is the requisite hugging, poking, chiding and teasing. Rei makes me stand up and turn around. She pronounces me far too thin and accuses me of having starved myself half to death with overwork. Minako agrees. I threaten half-heartedly to send them both to a hotel if they're going to be like that.

Artemis starts to complain about Rei sneaking up on him but is placated when she picks him up and cuddles him. She sits down on the sofa scratching his head while she surveys the map that's spread on the table.

"I just knew it was too quiet," she mutters, "but then perhaps we're known for thoroughly destroying things in Japan so they tried for elsewhere."

Minako kneels down on the opposite side of the table as I got and get drinks. Minako had stocked the fridge with Ramune, when she bought groceries, there are four different flavors. I bring rice candy as well, and open Rei's soda before handing it over to her so that she doesn't have to upset Artemis from her lap. Minako has already half-drained hers by the time I sit down.

"I could feel something was wrong when I was talking on the phone. There are threads of foreboding all over the place, all these tangled lines. SO far I haven't had any strong visions about anything other than that," Rei sighs, "I just wish our investigations weren't going to have to be scheduled around rehearsals. Why did you have to tell Shatcho that I was coming?"

"He's been after a reunion concert for ages," Minako says.

"But this isn't these "Three Lights" whoever they are..." Rei complains, "Have there been set times for the attacks?" she turns to me.

"Not really," I answer.

"Actually it's not just "Three Lights"," Minako puts in.

Both Rei and I turn to her, perplexed, waiting for explanation.

"Apparently there's this techno violinist or someone," Minako goes on, "The Lights want to work with her as well. I'd guess one of them wants to try and get with her," she shrugs.

Rei makes a very disgruntled noise but then turns back to me, "The attacks?" she says.

"Well, the first few weren't witnessed, so we only have the vaguest of ideas when they happened. The last one—they attacked so many there couldn't really not be witnesses—but it was after dark."

Rei nods, leaning back and yawning, "Perhaps we can go around downtown and take a look?"

Small talk keeps us distracted as we ride the bus. Rei seems just as intrigued by what is being called the Harris Phenomena as Minako. I find myself wrapped in several uncomfortable jokes like, "trust the Goddess of Love" or "listen to the Flame of Passion". I try to distract myself with my phone, but they're both sitting on either side of me so this fails.

"How long has it been since you've seen Rei-chan?" Minako asks, "Isn't it extremely rude of you to hide behind your phone the ENTIRE time?"

"It is," Rei adds before I can say anything, "How mean of you Ami-chan? Extremely mean!"

I can't help but blush—even though I know they're not serious, "I will only talk if you agree not to bring up Harris again...please," I look as sternly as I can from one to the other.

Both of them do a very good impersonation of being affronted. There's an awful moment where I think that I have misinterpreted the humor and really have offended them but then Minako collapses into a fit of the giggles and proves they really are just "having me on"

"We have more important-," I start.

"-things to worry about than your love life-" Rei says.

"-or denial thereof," Minako finishes.

They both laugh. I lower my head towards my lap and am almost concussed by the seat in front of us when the bus stops, and barely right myself before it starts again.

"Imagine how much worse to deal with Usagi-chan would be," Rei teases.

I have to admit this could be true. If Usagi were here I could easily see her trying to drag us over to Harris' house instead of working. She would set up a match-making karaoke party so that his sister could hang out with Mars Reiko and Aino Minako. Usagi was getting a lot better about focusing before we started to go our separate ways, but there's no telling what the peaceful times in Tokyo will have done for her behavior patterns.

"You're not as bad as Mako-chan," Rei continues.

"Why? What's happened? Aren't she and Motoki-san-?"

"You would think," she answers, staring out of the window for a few moments, "and now I know I'm not around them all that much when I haven't been playing Mars Reiko," she gives a pointed glare and presses the emphasis towards Minako who just winks at her. Rei's eyes are laughing, "I've been up at the shrine, but what little I've seen—especially with Motoki-san still stuttering around about the whole thing-"

"-and Mako-chan probably completely oblivious," Minako puts in with a glance towards me, "much like some other people we can't mention."

Rei nods and seems about to add something but what comes out is, "We need to get off here," and she pushes the emergency stop button as she leaps to her feet. Minako and I are quick to chase after her. The driver's voice follows us for a few seconds, full of rude words and threats, none of which he can act on before we're gone. We follow Rei carefully through the streets, picking our way past vendors and buskers. This is an area of LA that I've never been to, but that's not saying much. Any time it seems that either Minako or I even think about saying something Rei holds up a hand facing towards us, without stopping her forward motion. So we stay quiet so she can concentrate.

We've gone about three blocks when there's a wave of power that even a very not psychic person like myself can pick up slams into us. We slow down. I could swear that I hear someone yelling something about a laser, and there are sounds of fighting. The three of us exchange glances. A very tall woman with auburn hair wearing—what is she wearing? Or not wearing? Is thrown into the exterior wall of the nearby warehouse and then slides to the ground. Plate glass shatters all around. Again I hear something about lasers and this time also infernos. It hits me then that we should be helping. There are energies flaring back and forth across the alleyway.

I know I'm not the only one as I begin the motions I see the others are also transforming. Venus finishes first, Mars and I close behind, and we run into the fray. The auburn-haired woman is picking herself up and very carefully trying to move into battle.

There is a _youma_. The alley is too full of battle for me to be able to get a clear enough view of it to work out if it is the same one that attacked the group who were at the hospital. There are two other woman both clad in as little as the auburn one. They're the source of the laser and inferno talk, pelting the youma with beams of energy from star-shaped devices they hold in their hands. They look at us suspiciously as we join the battle. There's some kind of snarky comment made in our direction but I don't catch it properly.

As they launch their next volley the three of us unleash simultaneous bursts from our own power. There's a sixth energy miasma from the auburn woman that adds enough power to nullify the youma. We find ourselves staring at each other with mixtures of disdain, curiosity and confusion, depending on the source. I move to the auburn woman, Doctor Mode kicking in, but the shorter of the other two steps between us. She has long pale almost silver hair which reminds me very much of Zoicite not only in color, but also style.

"And just who the Hell are you?" she demands, "It's like they're multiplying like rats," she adds to her companions.

"Healer-" the dark haired laser shooter starts.

"What about you guys?" Venus demands, clearly ruffled, "You look as though you just walked off a porn set!"

"You have no room to talk-" one of them counters. I'm too busy hiding my face from the flush of embarrassment that I feel burning its way up my entire body to see, but I would guess the dark-haired one from the timbre of the voice.

"Alright!" The auburn one interjects, "Now that we're done insulting each other-" she looks pointedly at her companions and then turns to us, "We appreciate the attempt at help, but as we told your others, we would like you to leave this alone. You're interlopers-"

"Others?" Venus says.

"Interlopers?" Mars demands, "We've been fighting creatures like this on and off for years."

"Although admittedly in Japan," I point out, wondering if I should ask her to describe this "other".

Mars gives a chagrined smile, "Okay, so, yes, in Japan bu-"

"So, what, you just took a side trip from Osaka to help us out of the kindness of your heart?" Healer asks, "How very generous of you. We don't need help. We'll handle it."

"Because you're doing such a great job so far," Venus says, closing the gap between where she and Mars have been standing and where I got to on my approach to the auburn woman, "Mercury, how many are there at the general hospital alone?"

"Eight."

"They should be fine now," the dark-haired one says, but there is a clear petulance in her words.

We're all just rubbing each other the wrong way. We're not going to get any of the answers we need. Deep down I'm sure we all know it.

"This isn't helping," I try, "and that's all we were trying to do. We...I...we thought—"

"Well, thank you very much," she starts, but then stops.

We all hear it. Sirens. Rarely every a problem in Tokyo, but the police here probably think some kind of gang war has been going on and who knows what they would change their ideas to if they walk in on us. We melt away. We go back to the nearest bus stop, but who knows where our 'new friends' have gone.

"That could have gone better," Rei says.

Minako sighs, brushing down her slacks as she sits down at the bus stop, "You'd think after what went on...they didn't feel _right_ though. I have no idea how else to explain it."

"I know what you mean," Rei answers, "It was as if they were just as alien as the_ youma_. We're going to have to track them down again. Hopefully we can be more peaceful about it?"

"Hopefully," I agree, "but if they've been here—perhaps they've been able to keep things in check before now. Perhaps they're America's senshi? How would we feel if they just appeared and started attacking things in Tokyo?"

"They did say something about others didn't they?" Minako asks.

"I don't know," Rei answers, "and besides normal Americans don't feel like that, and I honestly don't know," she says the last part to Minako.

"I thought I heard it too, the others thing. I just…there was SO much going on." I turn to Rei, "How do we feel compared to regular Japanese people?"

"Different," Rei admits, "but not _that_ different."


	7. Chapter 7

SEVEN

We're stumped. I'm sitting on one side of the trunk coffee table picking at a sandwich made from leftovers. Rei is taking a shower and Minako is heating up some noodles. Artemis is sat on the arm of the couch, licking his paws, deep in thought. We've been lost in ourselves since we recounted to him what happened. All he said was "Hm" and then set about cleaning himself.

After a few more minutes Rei emerges from the bathroom, dressed, with a towel wrapped around her head. She massages a temple, "Things could have gone better," she murmurs.

"Are their other senshi?" I ask, "They said they'd met someone else like us—but Mako-chan and Usagi-chan are still in Tokyo, aren't they?"

"Yes," Artemis says.

"Unless," Minako, having set her bowl of noodles on the counter flops down in front of Artemis, "Can you turn into a senshi?"

Artemis' forehead crinkles and he sets down the paw he was gnawing on, "No."

Minako giggles for a moment than after scratching Artemis behind his ears turns more seriously to the discussion at hand, "I don't recall there being others aside from us," Minako says, "but any things I have remembered about the Moon Kingdom have mostly been focused around the Princess and," she gives a smirk, "also around Kunzite."

"We're only a fraction of the planets in the solar system," I say, "I know Rei-chan and I had been wondering a while ago why there weren't Neptune or Saturn _senshi."_

"Aliens," Rei sits down next to me, "That's the only way I can describe them. They felt like aliens, and they called US interlopers."

"There's been no conclusive proof of alien life—" I start.

"Ami-chan—we used to live on the moon!" Rei says.

Minako tries not to snort her noodles.

"The Moon Kingdom did have dealings with alien civilizations," Artemis cuts us back into echoing silence, "I do not recall anyone whose attire was quite like what you described just before, but that doesn't mean we haven't had dealings—civilizations evolve—if they didn't fall to Beryl or Metallia—there were many group who chose to stay out of things," he stands up and stretches arching his back and bearing his claws for a moment, "The only way to know for sure would be to try and make peace, share information. There were Outer ring _senshi_ but they were less directly involved. It could be possible that some survived somehow. If they stayed out there they'd likely not be human anymore."

"That's highly improbable—them being out there anymore. Those planets have been as thoroughly examined they're gaseous."

"Anyway," Artemis continues, "I'm honestly not sure how to discover anything without wandering around aimlessly again," he glances towards Rei for a moment, "Or…?"

"There isn't a fireplace," Rei says, "I don't want to set Ami-chan's apartment on fire."

"I would appreciate it," I add.

Minako rinses her noodle bowl out in the sink, "I think this does indeed warrant getting in touch with the others," she says.

When the phone rings right then I feel it would be the others somehow managing to call; but none of them has the number for my landline. Work is calling me in because they've a lot of changes in the coma victims and they need help. I'm more than happy to go, leaving Minako and Rei in charge of getting in touch with the others. As I busy myself getting ready to go they're arguing about the some concert and some text that Minako received from Shatcho. We exchange quick pleasantries as I rush out of the door.

The hospital is a buzz given the sudden change in the coma victims, and it's hard not to be caught up in the jubilant mood until everything comes crashing down. An unconscious youth is rushed into the ER by a blond man. I have this momentary impulse to curl into a ball. The doctors and nurses are all looking grim as symptom after symptom mirrors the previous coma patients.

I'm left with one of the day nurses and instructions to make the patient as comfortable as possible while the higher ups confer. I also have to appease the family's concerns when they arrive. I imagine they're talking about contacting a higher authority. The subject had come up previously and then been tabled again when the victims began waking up. They were hoping that testing those who woke up would yield something helpful to restore the remaining few—as far as they know that's still a possibility and I have no idea how I would begin to explain to them that they need to find monsters and kill them and then their patients will wake up.

The young boy is wearing the uniform from one of the local private high schools. The nurse helps me undress him and hook him up to the monitors. She goes to check that everything is transmitting properly to the nurses' station and as the door swings closed I notice that the boy's tie is on the floor. I'm bending over to pick that up when I feel eyes on my backside, lingering there. I hastily stand up and turn around, adjusting my glasses again. They're constantly slipping down my nose lately, but then they're the same ones that I've had since high school and they haven't been worn that much until recently and I keep neglecting to get them readjusted.

The person behind me—they came in the door as the nurse left—could, qualify as cute if I was interested. They have short cropped blond hair and look a bit rumpled, carrying a jacket carried over their shoulder. It's the blonde man who brought the boy in I'd wager. He gives me a slight smile.

"How is he?" He asks in an odd accent that I can't quite place; perhaps, it's just another region of the US that I'm unfamiliar with.

I move towards the end of the bed grabbing for the chart, "Are you a relative?" I ask.

He shakes his head, "No. I'm from the school," he says the name of it, but it doesn't mean much to me.

"I can't tell you very much until we talk to his family, and then you can ask them."

"He doesn't have any. He's from a group home and then there's us."

I sigh, "That's-"

"I'm not looking to get you into trouble," he says, "You can call your boss. I have the paper work. I just—I don't want to know anything drastic. I just want to know if he's going to be okay." There's something I'm missing.

"Well, there's only minor physical injuries, but the co-" I glance over at the teacher, between looking at the chart and the patient. I'm doing that over explaining thing again, and he doesn't seem to be following me.

As he drops the jacket on to the arm of the chair the angle and the light of the window behind, I realize he doesn't have an Adam's apple. Despite the cut of the shirt I've been incorrectly assuming their gender, "He should be fine." Provided we kill the _youma_.

"Should be?"

"Well, this is one of the better hospitals in the area. Hopefully your school records can let us know what he is or isn't allergic to and we will make sure he gets the best treatment. We've had success with similar cases in the past. I just-I tend to try and give us leeway. Though things are highly positive," so long as we track down and kill the _youma_, "and he should be back to school in no time. Of course, whether or not that will please him as much as that would have pleased me when I was his age remains to be seen."

She gives a slight smile, but still looks troubled. I realize she can't be much older than me, "Are you sure?"

Not anymore, and that depends on what she actually was talking about.

"How do you mean?" I try not to give away my uncertainty. While this isn't exactly going against instructions I feel torn between the guilt that I'm not checking on other patients and the guilt that I can't just fix this even though I have a good idea what's wrong. Ordinarily I would have bowed my way out long before now, and where has the nurse gone? There's something very compelling about this woman. I'm not sure I recall teachers being so concerned for their students, but then that's not something to be condemned. Without the boy's description we have no idea what this new _youma_ may look like. She did give me the school name, but how would we go about questioning the other students? I have to frame this so it's not outside of things a random medic at the hospital should really be asking about.

Well, ma'am. Do you prefer ma'am? In all probability your student was attacked and part of his soul's energy was eaten by an entity that could be from another planet or galaxy or possibly even plane of existence we're not sure on that part, but rest assured I'm going to change into a pretty soldier and vanquish it and then he'll wake up, see? All good.

"Um…well, that depends. Do you know anything about what happened? Was it at school? The more details we have the better chance we have of fixing things sooner."

There's a hesitation I catch on her part now. It reminds me of the way I get when I'm not sure I should say something. Perhaps she was with the boy when he was attacked? That would explain some things.

"He wasn't at school when he was attacked," she says, "He'd come down to..." there's hesitation, and then a smile, "something tells me you're not all that familiar with the world outside the hospital."

"That would be true," I admit, "Generally I spend my time between work and...never mind, you were saying."

"I'm keeping you from your duties."

"Actually I was asked to remain here until the boy's family showed up, um...I mean, I should be safe until I get paged."

Her smile widens just a little bit more, "Jason, his name is Jason Cawlis, " she offers me a hand to shake, "and I'm Alex."

I check that information on the chart. Then I remember she's holding her hand out. Her hand shake is firm and warm. Her grip is stronger than Makoto's. I feel my face flushing as she smiles at me.

"I race in my free time and sometimes the kids will come down to the track and watch. Jace knew I'd be down there today, and came down to there me, but then there was...someone," she says that last part firmly, as though trying to convince herself, "it-he, they, came in and attacked. It hit Jace with something and he was thrown across the room before I could do anything," she hangs her head, and runs her fingers through the short blond hair. Given the shirt is slightly unbuttoned, I catch the slightest of curves of the top of very small breasts. I look away, quickly towards the window and then the clipboard.

"What did the person look like?" I pause, "I'm sorry. The police will want-I'll let you visit."

"It's okay. I already talked to them. They're looking into things. Please. Stay. There—it's really messed up," her tone shifts a bit, she either doesn't believe it or she's purely saying it for my benefit, "They think the track's coming up with some kind of mascot or something and the guy just inhaled too many gas fumes. They were wearing some kind of suit that looked like it was made from car parts," she shakes her head, "I'm just mad i-he got away I should have stopped it."

I give her a cautious, but hopefully reassuring smile, even though parts of what she said sounded forced, "You wouldn't believe how many times we've had people in lately saying they were attacked by someone in costume. It must be a new gang trademark. I'm sure that the police will track it down."

She nods, chewing on her lip slightly, and I excuse myself before I really do get into trouble for being gone too long. As I duck out I catch strains of _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik _playing from her phone_. _


	8. Chapter 8

_So, it's been a few years since I've written on this. Family life and writing myself into a corner that I couldn't see out of, and drama, and things and stuff ;) I've gone back through and hopefully caught typos, grammar errors and things in the previous chapters, and added or changed a few lines here and there, particularly with chapter seven. Man, I seem to have loved ellipses. So many bits of dialogue that ended in ellipses! _

_Anyway, here's the continuation, and please hanker at me to actually finish. I want to start finishing these things, as it will help me finish the non fan-fiction works that I've got in the pipe line too. _

EIGHT

I'm bursting with information for Rei and Minako when I get home, but they're not there. I know I must slump when I come through the door and find the house empty. There's a note on the fridge's whiteboard which lets me know they had a meeting with Shatcho to work some things out about the show they're going to be doing. They're expecting to be back sometime within the next half hour when I check the clock.

At first I think Artemis must somehow be with them, but as I change out of my work clothes to take a shower I catch sight of him sleeping on one of the shelves in my closet. After the shower and change I'm Googling recipes that use ingredients we now have in the house thanks to Minako's shopping spree when the door unlocks and Rei comes in followed by Minako.

"I don't care how cute they were—," Rei is saying, "there's something off about the WHOLE thing."

"Ami-chan you're home!" Minako says. I wonder if she's attempting to divert the subject.

"Yes," I glance up from the computer and greet them, "it seems your day was as interesting as mine."

Rei harrumphs and drops onto the sofa putting down a couple of bags. She starts massaging her feet after she adjusts the pillows a little bit.

"Or not," I look to Minako for explanation as she is getting drinks from the kitchen and seems in less of a bad mood.

"The Three Lights are cute but weird in person," she says.

"Weird?" I turn away from the computer now, and look between them both.

"They're not weird! They're—and it's not just them," Rei says, "Michelle Ocean isn't what I'd call normal either, but with her it's different."

That's not really clearing things up for me, but my confusion must be apparent given Minako says: "Rei-chan thinks the Three Lights are aliens."

"I don't think they're aliens Minako-chan. They are aliens. Their energy feels almost exactly the same as the—the—bondage _senshi _from the other day. I don't even want to do the damn concert. I don't care what Michelle Ocean requested. She bribed Shatcho to get you here not me! This is all just too—and they ARE aliens!"

"Okay, so not only are they aliens they gender shift or something? Because I think you can agree those were clearly marvelous pectorals on Seiya today and not breasts. I like to think I know the difference. Ami-chan, what's your news?" Minako asks, giggling at Rei.

"Well, I did encounter a cross-dresser, actually…" They calm down enough so that I can relay everything that the teacher told me and the latest coma victim, "It's clearly a different _youma_. It sounds almost like it absorbed a car, or some of the parts, based on what Alex told me it looked like. Sounded like she was just parroting an expected explanation really, I don't think she believed a word of it."

"Some people aren't sheep." Rei remarks, guess we can check out the race track, or at least travel by there and see if we can get a sense of where it went. Good distraction." She glances at Minako.

"I'm not saying I disagree with you entirely. I just don't see how. Maybe there's a whole troop of them, and the guys are for some weird reason in a rock band and the girls are going around fighting _youma." _She shrugs, "We have to track down their music anyway, so we can learn some of the harmonies maybe there's something there. They've basically popped up out of nowhere, and I know Michelle has some weird energy with the things she's played. I've heard some of her work before and I always felt transported."

I set some of the music to download onto the computer.

"FINE." Rei says. She goes into her bag and picks out some things, and sets them on the living area side of the breakfast bar from where I'm setting up to cook. Minako and I have decided on one of the recipes I found and I become her prep chef while she does the main portion of the cooking. Rei seems a bit calmer now, "I picked these up at a store if you're okay with it I thought I might be able to try for fire reading without destroying the place. She shows me a big iron pan and a smaller bowl. She has what looks like some potpourri and a bundle of sage leaves and a couple of newspapers.

"Or we could invite Harris and his sister for a beach barbecue and see what she can come up with then?" Minako teases.

I can't help but blush and then almost cut myself trying to cool my face down with my hands.

"Don't hurt yourself!" Minako says, grabbing the arm with the knife and moving it away from my face.

"It's fine, Rei-chan. Go ahead. I'll just take the battery out of the smoke detector."

"Thanks," she says, and begins set up.

By the time my work is finished helping Minako Rei has a small blaze going and I slip by her cautiously to check what's going on with the computer. The songs have been downloaded for quite a while, and as I queue them up to play I realize I've heard some of Michelle Ocean's work playing through the lobby speakers at the hospital, and Minako is right that it was other-worldly.

Not wanting to potentially disturb Rei's work turning the music on I instead look up the Lights and Michelle's respective websites. I'm part way through the Lights bio detailing their sudden rise to fame and their gratefulness to all their fans who've helped make everything possible, when Minako starts to ask me something seeing. She thinks better of it after a moment, afraid of interrupting Rei, and instead turns the temperature down on the food and walks over. She's almost too me when Rei falls backwards off the stool she was on. Tears are streaming down her face. Minako goes to pick her up instead and hugs her before I get there.

"What happened? What did you see?"

Rei shakes her head for a moment. She takes several deep breaths and leans against Minako's shoulder for a moment, "It wasn't so much saw as felt. There's a rift. There's a lot of pain and anguish. It's hard to explain."

I pick up the stool and move it out of the way as Minako leads Rei to the couch.

"I know better. I should have ironed things out in my head more, but everything is so screwed up right now," she shakes her head, "I was trying to find out about the other _senshi _the bondage girls had talked about, but of course, that made me think of them and the Lights and all of that mess, and I just felt this incredible sense of loss, of violence. War. Then there was this…this presence. Darkness. Worse than Beryl or Kaguya or any of that. It felt like it was trying to rip me apart from the inside and I felt like I was falling. Well, I guess I was falling." She gives a small laugh, "I just kept hearing this noise…then there was also bits of laughter, and feeling things breaking, and buildings falling, almost being crushed, trying to get away, trying to find someone, panic."

I get her a glass of water and she accepts it, drinking deeply and then setting it down on the table nearby.

"What do you think it means?" Minako asks.

"Whatever this is it came from them." Rei says, firmly, "I'm very sure that was where they used to live that was full of war and terror, and that this…thing is what caused it. I'm," she sighed, "I don't want to accuse them of bringing it—well, no, I kinda do, but I can't let my ticked off mood color what I saw. I'm honestly not sure if they were chasing it in this direction or they were chasing something else and it was chasing them."

Minako sighs, "What about them being the same as the Three Lights?"

"I don't know on that." Rei says, "I still feel like their energy is the same but nothing in what I just saw confirmed," she puts a hand up to stop Minako saying something, "or denies," she continues, "my suspicions on that."

"I'll give you that."

"Don't they-." I pause going back to the computer and pulling up the music list, "They do."

"Do what?" Minako asks.

"The Three Lights, they have a song called "Chasing After You.""

"Not that that means anything." Minako puts in.

"Of course they also have "My Friend's Love" and—."

Rei cuts me off, "Just play them. Maybe Minako's not the only one who can put magic into music."

So, we listen to the music as Minako brings over bowls of food for us all, and we listen to the tracks again. The lyrics can be a little hard to follow at times, there is a small feeling of tension in some of them but overall it's just music. It sounds like any number of other boy bands lamenting that they want a girl who they can't have, or that they're searching for a way to be themselves, or they want to get down and have fun.

"Maybe it's different if they're live." Minako says after a moment.

"Don't try to appease me." Rei says.

"I'm not!" she says, "I just don't want to discount what you're saying. You're the psychic one. You have these feelings for a reason. I just…some of it makes NO sense even you have to admit that."

Rei sighs.

I go to turn the music off.

"Did you get any of Michelle Ocean's stuff?" Minako asks.

I nod, "I did. I think I've heard some of it at work before."

"Probably," Minako says, "She has some 'relaxing classic' albums playing up on the whole ocean thing, whale and dolphin songs and such as well as the more modern poppy-techno stuff."

I switch over to her prompt and press play. There is the sound of the waves and a few clicks from dolphins, a piano starts softly playing almost like a rumbling sound and then it begins to pick out a subtle melody which is answered by the more intricate violin.

It's like it's playing to my inner being, I feel like I want to cry almost, the feeling I had when Harris met me at the fountain the other day, as though the water is calling to me. I look towards Rei and Minako and they seem as though they're so far away, the energy swirling around them, showing me their other forms. It's as though the apartment folds away around us.

_I'm underwater. I'm not the only one there. There's another girl, a woman, she's swimming beneath me, long blue-green hair flowing behind her. She shimmers as she swims. A mermaid. I start to swim down towards her, but she's deeper than I can go. I try to push myself but I don't have that control. When I surface there's someone watching the water. They're watching her, not me, though I attract their attention coming up. I want to look around and see where everything is but it's not that sort of dream. I can only do what I did. _

_"Oor-rahn-uss," I hear myself saying. _

_"Mah-cure-ee," they reply, "all is good?" _

_"Yes. I needed that." I glance back to the water, "She's able to go so much deeper." _

_"She has reason." _

_"You never join her." _

_"Water is not my thing. Too wet." She gives a strange smile, perhaps a memory of her own and shakes her head, blonde, almost dusty. Then she pats me on the shoulder, "Your little princess needs you I'm sure. Go on." _

_She walks passed me towards the water, picking up a small stone as she does, and I walk on. Now I can see where I am. There's a large palace, white stone, marble, maybe? And it's many towers. There are others milling about, some seem half familiar, but I can't place anyone. _

_Then the scene is ripped from me. Its night time suddenly and there's someone singing from the large room behind me that's full of people. I'm running somewhere. My brain hasn't caught up with what exactly is going on. A meeting? Something important that's being set up. As I run up the stairs, the swimming woman and "Oor-ran-uss" are coming down the middle of the stair case. _

_They're arguing but I can't hear it all. There's something about refugees, the Queen, travel. When they see me stopped on the stairs the green haired woman gives a short wave, but then someone else calls, "Nep-chuun" from the shadows of the other side of the main room. This person is extremely tall, and her hair falls almost down to her feet and she doesn't quite make it into the light of the room. Nep-chuun runs down the stairs slowly followed by Oor-ran-uss and they quickly go off somewhere. _

_As I turn to continue my way up the stairs there's someone standing on the landing above me who I didn't see. At first I think it's Mars, but as she turns to speak to me I realize it's not, "It's all going to end, you know." She says, "It's coming to our region first, and then it will come here. The Queen doesn't listen to us, now we have to leave and we won't see you again." _

_"I don't thin—that can't be true." _

_"It is." She reaches a hand towards my face, "Don't worry. We know our duty." As she touches my face I want to cry, "We do what we must and then she will see what happens and things will be differ-." Then she trails off looking beyond me and her voice catches, and then she fixes me with a watery smile, "We'll meet again, somewhere." She says, gives me a long tight hug, and runs down the stairs and out after where the others went. _

_I want to go after her, but my body is trapped in what I realize now is a memory, and so it goes barreling up the stairs calling out for someone else whose name I don't make out as the palace walls fade from the stairs to a garden and there we all are, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the Princess watching as the four figures zip through a portal from the gardens of the Moon to another planet, sent like beams of light. _

_The Princesses face mirrors our own, "Mother says they'll be back soon, just scouting. I don't…" and she bursts into tears. Venus reaches to comfort her and a firm masculine hand rests on my shoulder and I turn looking to the white haired face, his features are blurred by my own tears. As he starts to say something I feel myself tumbling, the dark sky and the shaded trees fall _away and I'm back to my apartment struggling to my feet.

Rei and Minako look equally dazed and there we all sit with tears in our eyes each equally crestfallen. I don't have the voice to say anything, to ask them what they saw. The quietness in the room is so all encompassing it's as if its' sucking out even the will to make sound.


	9. Chapter 9

_AN: When there is dialogue in (parentheses) it's in Japanese. ^_^_

NINE

I take a leave of absence from work. I must sound terrible because when I talk to Dr. Harper and he doesn't question that something terrible has happened. His concern is evident as soon as I open my mouth. He assures me that all the paperwork will be straightened out and that my performance thus far has been exemplary and there won't be any question of things being alright with the school. My hand is still shaking when I put the phone down. I feel like I didn't sleep at all.

Minako is in the shower and has been for at least an hour. From the looks of Rei she was in there at least as long earlier and didn't sleep at all. She is sitting at the breakfast bar spinning a spoon in a bowl of cereal, "How were your dreams?" she asks. Artemis is curled up in her lap.

I shake my head, "I couldn't make sense of it. There were so many things that went through my head I could barely sleep. I just—I know—we know so little about what caused Metallia, It didn't make sense to me at the time but it had to have been Uranus, Neptune…they were—weren't they? The other _senshi." _

Rei drops the spoon, "I just would like to not see something when I close my eyes for ten—five minutes even that involves the annihilation of an entire civilization, or…or more."

I reach over the table and take her hand. Artemis pops up and climbs gingerly on to the breakfast bar.

"I think you're right with the Moon and the others though. When the music played I saw bits of a conversation I had with Saturn," Rei says, "I remember talking to her. That's what I saw first. We were sitting in one of our rooms at the palace talking about what was going on. The coming storm, all very corny, in a way, but the end of it was that she knew they were going to have to go back to the outer rim."

"The inner planets would have only been able to take so many refugees," Artemis says, "and the Queen felt it would be something they could easily handle. So, there was no reason to send others."

"That didn't work out too well for them," Minako remarks, coming from the bathroom with a towel against her head. She sits down against the door frame, "I don't want to dwell," she says, "I got so wrapped up in what little I remembered of what happened before—with the Princess and," she stops, shivering, "well, what happened before—there's nothing we can do about that."

"I think we realize that." I point out, "but Metallia _was_ defeated. We dealt with that."

"It's possible they don't know that," Artemis remarks, "None of us remembered about them until just now. There has to be something to trigger the memory. They could well just be remembering what happened that potentially destroyed their world and not know anything about the rest of us."

"All this speculation is problematic." Rei says.

"Can't you talk to Michelle Ocean?" I ask.

Minako purses her lips, "I honestly don't know. I hope so—but it might not go well."

"We don't know until we try though." Artemis says.

"True enough." She sighs, "Ami-chan, can you see if there's agent contact information on her website? Perhaps I can charm him into letting me come up there and meet her in private."

"I'll see if I can clear out my head and then while you're doing that perhaps we can try for whatever it was that attacked at the race track?" Rei says.

"I hope we're strong enough," I say as I wake the computer up, "That other one took all three of us and those aliens."

Rei sighs, "What about contacting Usagi-chan and Mako-chan?"

"It's about 12:30 a.m. tomorrow there right now." I say, "with my attempts at getting in touch, sparse as they were," I admit, "it seemed as though Usagi-chan had misplaced her phone or completely forgotten how to check email. I got Mako-chan once a few weeks after I moved here. I called her shop and instantly felt guilty." I pull up Michelle Ocean's page and print out the contact information for Minako.

Minako ruffles my head, "Ah, Ami-chan you are so you."

"I admit I've not been in touch with people well at all," Rei says, "Work had me crazy busy. I never expected to be doing so much and traveling all over." She gives Minako a half-hearted glare.

"Work does that." Minako says, "I can't fault you for my own similar actions. Poor Artemis hasn't been in touch with Luna either." She says, "Have you?"

"I haven't talked to her since I've been here." He says, "The last time we did speak she made no indication that there was anything bad going on over there."

"I don't want to bother them," I admit, "We're already riling up the apparent locals enough. We bring two more into the party—it's just."

"It's possible they do have things going on over there." Minako says, "They might be saying the same about us right at this moment." She inhales, "Alright, after I schmooze Michelle Ocean I'll see about getting in touch with Usagi-chan and Mako-chan even if I have to put an ad out over there I will accomplish it and we can let them decide for themselves. If it's midnight there now I'll call in about seven hours." She puts an alarm on her phone, "If nothing else Mamoru is likely up that early."

Rei excuses herself to run her head under the shower for a little while and Minako gets on the phone with Michelle Ocean's agent. I change into trek worthy clothes and pack some bottles of water into my purse. Minako is waiting for a call back when we leave. We walk up the block to get money from the bank and wait there for a cab which takes us to the race track.

"You know there's nothing going on there today, right?" The cabbie says.

We assure him its fine and get out looking around. Rei hones in right away on the area where the attack took place and we're walking over there when a voice calls out to us. I turn around. The blonde woman from the hospital is striding across the tarmac towards us. She's wearing racing leathers and has a helmet held loosely in one hand.

"That area's off limits!" she says. Then she stops and cocks her head slightly, "There's something about you."

I try to look innocent and confused, "Off limits? I'm sorry—we must have missed the sign."

I put a hand on Rei's arm and she turns around, "What's going on?"

"Yeah, it's for rac—weren't you the cute nurse from the hospital?"

I feel the heat in my face and Rei laughs and nudges me.

"You are." She gives me a devilish smile, "I haven't been able to be by there today. How's he doing?"

"I—I honestly don't know I'm on leave, but when I left yesterday he was stable."

Her expression darkens a little but then she smiles again, "So, what brings you down here?"

"Um…I was curious. Haven't seen much of the world outside the hospital," I feel the words catching in my throat. I really wish I could be a better liar.

"Oh, well, then, let me show you around, Ami, right? And…" she extends a hand to Rei, "Alex Haruka."

"Rei Hino." She says, shaking the hand. She flexes her fingers after Alex lets go.

Alex leads the way away from the area we were trying to go. I whisper to Rei in Japanese that I'm sorry.

"It's okay," she says back, "she's just as energetic as the violinist."

Alex is leads us away from the back of the machine shops, most of which were locked up, and towards the stands, "If we go up to the commentary box you can see the whole track." She says.

"Do you race here often?" Rei asks.

"I prefer off-road really but you take what you can get." She seems bemused by us, "You don't have to pretend, you know?" she says, "I can tell you're not really interested in the track. Are you doing like on _House_? You know where they investigate places a patient got hurt looking for toxins and stuff to see if there's something else going on?"

"Yes, that's exactly it. She pegged us, huh, Ami-chan?"

"Y-yes, right." I feel myself blushing again hopefully it looks more like guilt at being caught than being terrible at lying. If she has the _senshi_ energy though maybe she wouldn't look at us like we're crazy if we said we were trying to track a _youma _especially as I have nothing in my bag that I could possibly put samples in.

"Well, then, I'll take you where things happened so long as I'm with you should be okay."

"Great." Rei says, forcing enthusiasm.

We find ourselves going back towards the machine shop. The sun is beating down hard and the heat is getting unbearable considering the black top we're right near. I slow down to take a drink and Rei stops to get a bottle.

"(Maybe we can just tell her the truth?)" I offer.

Rei frowns, "(I'd like to think so but what would you think if I came up and said that to you? We have no idea if she's even awake? If she's not she's going to think we're as nuts as well, I thought you and Usagi-chan were...)" she looks back towards Alex who has turned around to see what's keeping us and then looks down at her belt, "(Though at this point, who cares? We already have aliens pissed with us.)"

I nod, "(and no word from Minako about things with…um…the violinist?)"

Rei checks her cell phone, "(Phase one successful)," she reads, "(I guess she has the meeting then? Or she's gotten in touch with the others. I wish she'd been more specific.)"

"Everything okay? Not going to die on me are you?" Alex calls. She has her own cell phone in one hand.

Rei follows after me texting Minako her displeasure at the cryptic phrasing.

"It's a bit hot." I consent.

Alex rolls up the door on the shop and we walk inside. It's even hotter in there. She goes to turn on the large fans that are on the ceiling, as she walks off I hear those strains of _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_ again, and she says, "Hey, babe," as she disappears around the corner.

"What do you feel?" I ask Rei.

"(Definitely it started over here…)," she points behind her to the left, and she steps backwards, "(There's a surge here)," she says.

She's standing in a scuff mark, a deep rubber gouge from a tire that moved backwards at quick speed, though there's not much backwards room for a bike to go.

"(I think we're looking at a conversion entity)," she says, "(I think it possessed someone's bike)."

"(So, we need to find out whose bike this was? That's not going to seem suspicious.)"

I hear the _bleep-bloop_ of a phone disconnecting and Alex is standing in front of us, "(You know,)" she says, "(It's really not polite to talk in a foreign language in front of other people. They might think you have something to hide.)"


	10. Chapter 10

_AN: I thought I should comment given I meant to on a previous chapter that I know in the English translation of the anime Haruka's name is given as Amara, but I felt that the MIXX-translation name of Alex fit better. Besides this is PGSM-based ^_~ for which there is no Outer Senshi canon. _

_Oh, and again () dialogue is in Japanese. The Japanese words that Alex offers in place of guardians are various similes for guardian, such as protector, police and guards. _

TEN

The silence serves to fuel the fire of shame. After what seems an hour Rei says, "So…um…you speak Japanese."

I get the feeling she wants to say something even more sarcastic as she inhales deeply and pushes one hand down in front of her, "You noticed."

Then comes the awkward sheepish laughter.

"Y-you must think we're crazy." I put in.

She laughs, "You guys really assume too much."

"How do you kno—."

"Is that really what's important here?"

I chew on my lip. Rei puts her hand on my shoulder.

Alex leans against the strut of the door, "So, your hospital is either way more on the ball than I expected or you guys are guardians too?"

"Guardians?" Rei queries.

"I think its _hogo-sha? _Maybe _Kaigo? Heishi?" _She pauses between each word, "_Keisatsu? _Do you get my point?_" _

_"Senshi." _I say, "That's what we were told we were."

"_Senshi_." She repeats, "Huh. Well, so far you seem friendlier than the others we ran into. Though you're one short of Michiko's scrying but I'll take that over those…_bitches_."

"I think we've run into them too." Rei says, "If they're a bit taller than you and wear these weird black…leather things?" she waves a hand up and down.

Alex laughs more, "Yes! Man, they look like they should be in a porno. Though they're powerful I'll give them that; but…we…I don't know where they come from. Enough useless speculation. You guys seem like you were working out how to track this thing?"

"Well, it worked before." Rei says, "Though the bus driver got a bit pissed with us."

"I have a car over there." She points towards the parking lot, "and I really want to destroy the critter we haven't had a chance to track it given I'm really not the tuner. The damn mirror is just a piece of glass to me in a really pretty frame."

"Sounds good," I say, looking at Rei.

So, we follow Alex to a shiny yellow convertible. She rolls the top down as we drive off. Rei sits in the back, knots up her hair, and closes her eyes after pushing me to sit in the front passenger seat.

"So, uh, how long have you been—you know."

"A _senshi?" _She laughs, "You get shy about that now? Well, when did you guys find out?"

"Middle school."

"Damn," she says, "I was part way through high school and that was rough enough."

"It was stressful," I admit, "though we've had some down time between Metallia and Kaguya."

"Left! Turn left!" Rei says.

The car screeches a little as it drifts around the corner. A few people honk but we carry on. Alex seems unconcerned.

Rei leans forward and looks around, more intently, "The energy's getting a lot stronger."

"What about you?" I ask.

Alex's face darkens a little, "Back then it was this creepy scientist who was possessed by an entity of some sort. He—they were trying to destroy the world. The thing used his kid against us—it was messed up."

"Stop!" Rei calls out.

The car screeches to a halt, and Alex slides it into an empty slot along the side of the road. We look around. There doesn't seem to be anything out of place. There are shops along the block, and some of the pedestrians give a strange look into our direction. One claps and compliments Alex on her driving.

Rei frowns, "(The energy started to recede again as we passed this point.)"

"Mick's bike!" Alex says, softly, indicating it with her head, "That's the one that was hit right after Jason was. The blast went right through him then the bike came to life."

"So…" I say, "(It doesn't seem to be doing anything right now. I'm surprised it's not rampaging all over the place. That is where the energy is coming from?)"

Rei nods.

"(Okay, I suggest we attempt to casually go into some of the nearby stores and, you guys do have the transformation thing too, right?)"

We nod. As Rei and I climb out of the car Alex's phone rings. She makes a disgruntled noise, and starts tapping the screen a few times, "I'll be down here," she nods to the alley, "Then I need to pick up some music. Meet back here in about ten minutes?"

"Sure!" Rei and I say, and go into the nearby clothing store.

"So," Rei says as we walk inside, "You think she's Uranus?"

"I'd be extremely surprised if she wasn't." I admit.

Rei grabs a few clothing items off racks as we walk by and hands a couple to me. We practically run to the changing rooms then back out to the street transformed. Sure enough a blonde woman in a blue and yellow _senshi_ costume is standing on the hood of Alex's car. She has a sword in one hand.

"That's different," Mars says, "When do we get cool weapons?"

"I knew I would drive out some more of you!" A woman's voice radiates from across the street. She has long bright red hair which rivals Mars' in length and is wearing a red corset and short skirt along with red boots which are come all the way up her calves. She has a length of rope around her waist, "Awaken, bike guardian!" she calls, snapping her fingers and the bike folds up on itself coming to life. I manage to brace with shield as it shoots a blast of energy at us.

The street had halfway started to clear out of people though it also attracted some curious onlookers. Now more of them run, but I see a few ducking behind things with camera phones out. Wonderful. Mars attacks the bike with "Fire Soul Bird" but it has little effect beyond scorching the surface of the metal. Our new companion leaps towards the red woman. She lashes out in return catching Uranus' wrist with the rope which appears to be a whip, and Uranus pulls the woman off her feet and goes after her with the sword.

"I didn't think it would do much but I was hoping." She mutters.

"Maybe I can make the metal brittle and then we can shatter it?"

"Have at though I'm afraid of just melting it…"

I focus myself drawing on the power of the _Aqua Storm _attack but trying to focus on freezing as I did with the _youma _that attacked Urawa. I hear Mars calling to Uranus asking to trade temporarily, as she hurls fire bolts towards the red haired woman. My attack hits home, but the creature is quickly cracking through the ice. Next thing some kind of tornado like earthquake barrels down the street and slams the _youma. _The ice is obliterated and it's plating buckles, bends and cracks as it is shot several feet down the road, but it picks itself shakily up and sends off another blast of energy. I don't get my shielding power up in time and am knocked backwards. The woman we now have confirmation is Uranus in _senshi _form hoists me to my feet.

"Can you do that again?" she asks.

"(What the hell?)" I hear Mars say from the left of us.

"I hope so." I inhale deeply. It feels as though my power level was shaken a bit from the hit, "_Mercury Ice Storm!" _True enough the attack hits but appears weaker. It barely slows the _youma _down though it's still shaky itself. Uranus gears up her attack but as it wends its way down the street something else hits from the other side. The _youma _shatters and a bright light ball flies up into the air and disappears.

"You again!" a familiar voice says, as a leather glad white haired woman jumps across several cars and down near us.

"Argue later. Fight now!" Uranus says, turning back towards the red-haired woman. The dark-haired alien woman is also after her, and as the rest of us round on her she disappears.

"I knew you were all working together." The dark haired one says.

"You guys keep getting in the way!" the white haired woman continues.

"I seem to recall us being here first." Uranus remarks, "Though I grudgingly thank you for the obliteration."

"You're welcome." She says, equally grudging.

"What exactly is your problem?" Mars asks.

"You keep getting in the way." The black haired one echoes.

"I'm sorry. Whose planet is this?" Uranus asks.

The move side by side, the dark has her arms folded and the white her fists clenched.

"We seem to be on the same side." I point out, "maybe we can just—."

"This may be your planet but these invaders are not your problem. They're ours."

"So, you did bring them here!" Mars accuses.

Which is when they run off.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note:  
Ah! I've been out of state for a bit and then sick with some mega-flu :p and this chapter was just not working, so I threw out all but the first couple of paragraphs and re-worked. Some of it is a bit...I don't know. I blame part of it for the fact I've been screen-capping R for my website. Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed or added me as a "to follow" in the mean time ^_^ _

"God damn them." Uranus says. She looks for a moment like she's going to tear off after them, but then her sword dissolves and she goes down the nearby alley. I go into a nearby bookshop and Mars back into the clothing store. A few moments later we are back at the car.

"They make no sense." I say, getting into the back this time.

"Maybe they do on their planet." Rei answers, "and the red-head was new…"

"I've seen her once before," Alex says, "Calls herself Lead Crow. There was another one with her that time…Aluminum something."

"So, they've been around for a while?" I ask.

Alex shakes her head, "A couple of months, maybe? We've, man, we were here a week or so before we started seeing things. It might have been here before we got here. I hope. I dread to think we brought it with us."

"And the aliens?" Rei asks.

Alex hisses a little, "I don't know for sure. We've been trying to track them down since we saw them; but we have day to day obligations. I was doing the sub job as a favor. I have racing commitments—Michiko has her…work."

"Maybe we should just all talk together?" I look at Rei.

She chews on her lip, "Depending on what Mi—Venus says."

We look to Alex, "I'll have to check myself, but I don't see why she'd say no. Speaking of which I really need to let her know I'm not dead," she gives a sly smile, "I'd appreciate some privacy while I make the call. I can drop you off anywhere you need after."

Rei nods, "Alright. We'll check where Venus is and get everything sorted out."

I'm not sure whereabouts in town we are when she pulls over into a parking strip in front of a small public garden her phone is already dialing. Rei and I get out of the car.

As we're walking off I hear Alex saying, "Now, you know you can't get rid of me that easily." Her laugh is different when talking to this person, so I imagine it must be her "Michiko" which I suppose is also why she knows Japanese, "I hope your meeting was less eventful than mine wound up being."

Rei heads down the path to the right and pulls out her own phone, "May as well check back in with Minako."

I look ahead for places we could hide out and talk.

Rei laughs when she opens her phone, "Alright, well, she tells me what she meant before was that she had arranged a meeting with Michelle Ocean and was in it when I texted her back. She wasn't able to get in touch with Usagi or Mamoru," she flips to another text message, "or Mako either but left messages," another flip, "no answers back from anyone so far." She presses the button to call Minako back.

In the end we go into a small canopy hut that has a bathroom in it and she pulls a sign across the door saying it's closed for cleaning.

"_Moshi moshi minna-chan!" _Minako exclaims, loudly enough to be heard before Rei puts the speaker phone on, "How are things?"

"Well," I say, "we met a _senshi_, fought a _youma_, a controller, and got into it with the aliens again."

"Wow," Minako says, "You guys have all the fun. I'm kidding, Rei-chan," she adds hastily, "So, what happened?"

"You first," Rei says, "How were things with Michelle?"

"Meh," is the answer, "They were going okay-ish. She got several phone calls during the meeting and then Ty showed up."

"Ty?" I ask.

"Seriously?" Rei says, sounding more than a little disgusted, "What did he want?" She looks over at me, "I'm guessing she means one of the Three Lights band."

"I do."

"I guess he was just in the area, and then he saw us. He was being a bit…weird." She shrugs, "I really don't know. I feel like he's not comfortable with a lot of what's going on—or well, it was like everyone was stuck between everyone else. I think he had wanted to talk to Michelle about something and I was there. I wanted to talk to Michelle about stuff and then he showed up, and everyone keeps getting messages and, then, of course, all three of us in one space it's like some fan nexus. Tell me again why I agreed to this idol thing?"

"Why you agreed?" Rei demands.

"Oi, oi." Minako chides, "Whereabouts are you guys?"

"I think we're at Ascot Hills?" I try to picture where we were versus the street maps I've glanced at, "Alex, said she'd bring us back where we needed to be, besides we're hoping for a meeting of the minds."

"Oh?"

"Well, she is the other _senshi_ we were talking about. Uranus." Rei puts in, "She apparently has a partner in not-crime, and we have you, so we figured we'd take it from this side instead and meet up somewhere. Once we here from her."

"Civilian or _senshi_ form?"

"Well the three of us are all blown secret identity wise," I point out, "but if you would prefer to be anonymous we can suggest it. Michiko might also prefer that. Alex was speaking about her activities in very guarded terms."

"I'm whatever at this point," Minako replies, "It's not that hard to switch. So, in other words, meeting, yes! Go! Fight! Go!"

Rei rolls her eyes. I can't help but laugh. This whole day has been one thing after another. At this point Michiko could turn out to be royalty from another country and I wouldn't be surprised. Though I can't help but think of the fact that Michiko sounds a lot like Michelle, considering what happened when we were listening to Michelle Ocean's music.

We walk slowly back towards the entrance to the park. I try to inhale the greenery and de-stress myself, but it's difficult to not have my mind wander back to the fact that I'm bailing on my hospital responsibilities, or that we've possibly ticked off an unknown alien species.

"How're you doing?" Rei asks.

I find it hard not to laugh again, "I've been…was this ever easy?"

Rei shook her head, "Not really. It was just different. We were in our native land. It was only this one threat. Now we have other senshi and aliens and possible alien attackers but definitely ano—I should stop. I imagine you already have lists of your own."

I nod, "In triplicate."

She gives me a quick squeeze, "Ah, Ami-chan, what are we going to do with you?"

When we round the corner to the entrance of the park Alex is leaning against the side of her car with her arms behind her looking up at the sky. She looks down just as we're approaching and gives a small wave, "All is well?" she asks.

"We're up for a meeting whenever is mutually agreed." I say.

"Sooner the better," Alex says, "Where am I taking you?"

Rei gives her the corner store near my apartment, "If it's not too much trouble?"

"That's fine. What about the meeting of the _senshi_?"

We negotiate as to whether or not we'll be in full dress, which we will, and then when we should meet. She can arrange for any time during the rest of the afternoon, which is agreeable to Minako who is already at the apartment. So, we decide to meet in Echo Park an hour and a half from now. She drops us off with a wink and a, "Ciao, lovelies!"

We wave and she speeds off, "How does she not get tickets?" I ask.

Rei shakes her head at me.

"What? Our average speed was fifteen over the limit the entire time we've been out with her." I look at Rei as she's just looking back at me still, "What?"

"Ami-chan," she says.

I'm still looking at her in what is hopefully a quizzical manner.

"Never mind."

Minako pounces on us both when we open the door, "I heated up some snacks!" she says, "and I actually got some word from Tokyo! Not a lot," she amends, "they've been busy with something it sounded like she said alien tree…she was calling me back while she was waiting for Mako-chan to pick her up from school, I guess, but then something happened, wouldn't you know? She said she hoped to get back to me later on."

I exhale, "Alien tree?"

"It was hard to hear her; there was a lot of school noise and everything but, I mean, we've got aliens here."

"I don't want to speculate." I say, "My brain is fluxing from mishearing, coincidence to cosmic invasion."

Rei pats me on the shoulder, "Let's just focus on what we've got here, right now, and get food in us and get to the park."

We eat quickly, hop on the bus which gets us there early, but it's worthwhile to give us a chance to track down the spot Alex was speaking about, a gazebo that's off out of the way a little. There are some people in the park, mostly dog walkers and people just meandering. Then we cordon the place off, and change the sign as though it's been reserved for someone, and hide in the woods themselves to transform. We've only been sitting around for a few minutes when Uranus shows up with her partner, based on her appearance she's the Neptune from our shared memory, and Uranus introduces her as such and we introduce Venus.

As Neptune shakes each of our hands she gets a strange look on her face, especially when she shakes Venus' hand. She looks over to Uranus, "Are you serious?" she says, then she laughs, "I'm sorry. That sounds terrible. I just…your energy," she shakes her head again, "_C'est la vie."_

The three of us exchange looks at that and Venus puts her head down for a moment and laughs herself then, doubled over, gut wrenching laughter, "Oh, man, Mars, you were right, weren't you?"

"That whole lunch mess," Neptune says, "Oh, that was terrible. Uranus, don't worry about it." She takes Uranus hand and they walk into the woods for a moment.

Venus is still laughing, but we take the cue and revert to our civilian forms. A few moments after that Alex comes back out of the woods followed by a young woman. She looks as though she's probably half Asian with almond eyes and long wavy auburn hair.

She bows in greeting and looks up with a quirk to her smile.

"Mizuno Ami," Rei says, "Meet Michelle Ocean."


End file.
